University hails £500,000 anaesthesia research institute

ONE of Scotland's leading universities yesterday announced the creation of a new Institute of Academic Anaesthesia to raise the profile of research into a key area of medical science and to accelerate the development of safer and more effective drugs.

Dundee University is investing 500,000 to establish the institute which will be headed by Professor Tim Hales, a leading Washington-based researcher who studied for his PhD in anaesthesia at the university 20 years ago.

A spokesman for the university explained that the decision to establish the dedicated research centre had been taken in response to a report from the Royal College of Anaesthetists, which criticised the lack of research in a vital area of patient care.

Prof Hales said: "There is a pressing need for research leading to improved anaesthetics.

"People expect safe and effective pain relief. However, all anaesthetics have deficiencies, which is not surprising given that most entered clinical use through a process of trial and error.

"Local anaesthetics in the dental setting not only kill pain but leave the face numb and partially paralysed. General anaesthetics, such as the intravenous agent propofol – the drug responsible for Michael Jackson's untimely death – are lethal at doses slightly higher than those used for surgical anaesthesia.

"Opioid analgesic drugs commonly used to treat long-term pain are structurally related to heroin and become less effective with prolonged use, leading to physical and sometimes psychological dependence."

The researchers at the new institute will be working closely with experts at the university's Centre for Neuroscience, where Professor Jeremy Lambert and Dr Delia Belelli are already studying the mechanism of general anaesthetics.

Prof Lambert said: "The arrival of Professor Hales and his research team from Washington greatly strengthens this area and establishes a new research focus."