Additional facilities

Strong working relationships are in place between the CRF and the Pharmacy within the Trust. A team of experienced pharmacists work closely with the CRF research staff to provide a tailored service to investigators undertaking all types of clinical research. This ensures the safe handling, storage, labelling and supply of IMPs to clinical trial subjects as well as governance of randomisation procedures and 24-hour cover to access code-breaking.

North West London Pathology (NWLP) is hosted by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and provides services to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust and Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.  As one of the largest pathology departments in the United Kingdom, NWLP offers a large portfolio of tests from UKAS accredited and MHRA regulated laboratories in West London.

The Hammersmith campus hosts the latest magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, alongside other state-of-the-art imaging facilities. In addition to NHS and College-owned equipment, the campus is the home of one of Europe’s leading molecular imaging and radiochemistry centres, Invicro, complementing radiochemistry in the CRUK-ESPRC-MRC-NIHR-funded Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Laboratory.

Advanced image modelling is provided by the Cancer Imaging Centre, MRC London Medical Sciences and the neuroscience mathlab. Additional expertise is provided by the South Kensington–based Imperial Biomedical Imaging Group. Invicro, which is located next to the CRF at Hammersmith, offers unique opportunities for the development of innovative collaborative clinical science. The facility, with two cyclotrons, both R & D and GMP manufacturing radiochemistry (24 hot cells), two PET-CT and 2×3 Tesla MR scanners, serves the PET imaging needs of this community, particularly around radiotracers with a short half-life.

In addition to Invicro, the site also hosts the Imperial College Clinical Imaging Facility (ICCIF) providing PET (Siemens Biograph 6 PET/CT) and MRI (Siemens 3T Verio MRI) facilities. The Facility is housed in the basement of the Wolfson Education Centre, and the CRF has very close links with the facility, offering reception duties as a minimum for all ICCIF studies.

In partnership with the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LIMS), the Imperial BRC Genomics Facility provides next-generation sequencing (NGS) of human genomes and microarray technology. The includes the provision of key staff, access to supporting bioinformatics, data storage and sample preparation. They provide whole genome, exome Amplicon, ChIP and RNA sequencing, custom target capture, methylation and 16s metagenomics profiling. The National Phenome Centre houses state-of-the-art tools for metabolomic profiling, proteomics and mass spectrometry.

The Imperial College Healthcare Tissue Bank (ICHTB) provides an umbrella resource under which the collection of, and access to, human tissue for research use is regulated. It provides the legal and ethical frameworks to facilitate research bringing together expertise in basic biological science, physics and bioengineering, with clinicians, to enable speedy bench to bedside translation.

The NIHR Imperial CRF is a member of the North West London Clinical Trials Alliance which is a collaboration between:

•     NIHR Clinical Research Network North West London, including its partners in primary care settings
•     The Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs) hosted by:
•            Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
•            Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
•            London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust
•     Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust
•     Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
•     The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
•     London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
•     West London NHS Trust

The Alliance is dedicated to delivering commercial and non-commercial sponsored clinical trials – utilising existing and purpose-designed facilities to successfully deliver both early and late-phase research. It aims to increase regional capacity for delivering commercial clinical research, as well as to improve the ease and speed of research delivery, patient access to clinical research and patient opportunities for early access to cutting edge treatment and therapies that are not yet widely available through the NHS. The Alliance works collaboratively to understand the needs and priorities of life science companies. Our strong regional team ethos allows us to work in a harmonised manner across centres.

Find out more about the North West London Clinical Trials Alliance.