6th UK & Ireland Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Meeting 2012
The Trustees were approached by Professor Neil Pearce from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who is the Chair of the 2012 Meeeting, for support for this meeting which will take place on 27th March 2012. The Trustees have agreed to offer £1,100 in underwriting costs to enable the planning process to start.

University of Edinburgh
A grant of £207,142 was awarded to the University of Edinburgh in November 2011 for research to be carried out by Dr Rodger Duffin, Dr Nick Mills et al entitled "Translocation and systemic distribution of inhaled gold nanoparticles". Work is due to start in January 2012.

City University London
In August 2011 a grant of £107,979 was awarded to Professor John Barbur and Dr Marisa Rodriguez-Carmona in the Applied Vision Research Centre at City University London for a study "Assessing the severity of colour vision loss in occupational environments". The use of colour in occupational environments is important since it enables the efficient coding of signals and information and this, in turn, enhances visual performance, provided observers can make use of colour signals. The work is expected to start in October 2011. Professor Barbur can be contacted on johnb@city.ac.uk

University of Oxford
The Trustees agreed to fund a study entitled "Translating recent advances in human physiology and genetics into improvements in health of miners at high altitudes in the Andes". The grant is for £191,732 and the work is expected to take two years. Professor Peter Robbins is leading the study based in Oxford, with Professor Fabiola Leon-Velarde in Peru, and Professor Robbins can be contacted on peter.robbins@dpag.ox.ac.uk

Deafness Research UK/University of Manchester
The Trustees awarded a grant of £134,830 over two years to Dr Kathryn Hopkins at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester for research into detecting the early effects of occupational noise damage to hearing. The work is due to start in January 2012. Dr Hopkins can be contacted on kathryn.hopkins-2@manchester.ac.uk

The Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) Edinburgh
Dr John Cherrie, working with Professor Damien McElvenny and Dr Martie van Tongeren, will be looking at "The mortality of workers with occupational lead exposure". The team was awarded a grant of £79,899 to cover this study. The work is due to start in September 2011 and is expected to run for 12 - 15 months. Dr Cherrie can be contacted on john.cherrie@iom-world.org. Professor McElvenny can be contacted on damien@statisticsandhealth.co.uk

University of Manchester
A grant of £82,943 was awarded to Dr Frank de Vocht in the Centre for Occupational & Environmental Health for a two year study entitled "Exposure to static and time-varying magnetic fields during MRI procedures in clinical practice in the United Kingdom". The work will start in January 2012. Frank can be contacted on frank.devocht@manchester.ac.uk

Imperial College
A grant was agreed to part-fund the salary costs of Mrs Susan Schofield as a statistician in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the National Heart & Lung Institute at Imperial College. Susan works with Professor Paul Cullinan, and has become involved with existing Colt-funded projects recently.

University of Manchester
A new grant was awarded to Professor Raymond Agius for a two year study entitled "Further development, evaluation and dissemination of a model to predict the asthmagenicity of chemicals". Work started in January 2011, in collaboration with Dr Martin Seed from Manchester, and also Dr James Jarvis from the University of Edinburgh. Dr Jarvis was a previous Colt Foundation PhD student in Edinburgh. Professor Agius can be contacted on raymond.agius@manchester.ac.uk

Edinburgh Napier University
The Trustees agreed to fund a three year study at Napier University, led by Professor Vicki Stone with Dr David Brown and Dr Keith Guy (all Napier), and Professor Ken Donaldson and Dr Rodger Duffin (University of Edinburgh) entitled "The role of nanoparticle-protein interactions in determining the toxic consequences of nanoparticle exposure" at a cost of £287,282. The work started in 2009. Professor Stone and her team moved to Heriot-Watt University at the end of 2010, and the remainder of this work is being conducted at Heriot-Watt. Professor Stone can be contacted on v.stone@hw.ac.uk and Professor Donaldson on ken.donaldson@ed.ac.uk.

University College London (UCL) Centre for Sexual Health and HIV Research
A grant of £89,491 over eighteen months was agreed for work entitled "The impact of HIV/AIDS and antiretroviral therapy on mortality in South African platinum miners: 1992 - 2008". This work is led by Dr Pam Sonnenberg, who has previously been supported with a Colt Foundation PhD Fellowship, and also during her previous work in South Africa while based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The work is due to start in September 2008. Pam can be contacted on PSonnenberg@gum.ucl.ac.uk

ELEGI/University of Edinburgh
Craig Poland, who currently holds a Colt Foundation Fellowship in the ELEGI Colt laboratories at the University of Edinburgh, had asked the Trustees to consider funding the purchase of Comet analysis equipment to help with his work on nanotubes. This was discussed at the April 2008 Meeting of Trustees, and a grant was awarded to cover the costs. Craig can be contacted on s0577019@sms.ed.ac.uk

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The Trustees discussed an application for funding entitled "Trends in and risk factors for drug-resistant tubereculosis in South African gold miners" at their Meetinng in November 2007. Following further discussions and a meeting with members of the research team, it was agreed to fund this work over one year at a cost of £89,984. Dr Clare van Halsema, who will be based in South Africa for the duration of this work, and Dr Alison Grant, based at the LSH&TM, are the leading members of the team. Work commenced in April 2008. A six-month extension to the grant was agreed by the Trustees in March 2009, and work will now continue until September 2009. Dr Alison Grant can be contacted on alison.grant@lshtm.ac.uk

Swansea University
An application was considered in November 2007 for a study into the Genotoxicity of single walled carbon nanotubes to be carried out by Dr Shareen Doak and Dr Chris Wright at Swansea University, and the Trustees agreed to fund this eighteen-month study at a cost of £80,342. The work is intended to allow the researchers to determine the impact of single-walled carbon nanotubes upon genetic integrity, providing valuable data for future exposure risk-assessment. The work started in March 2008. Dr Doak can be contacted on S.H.Doak@swansea.ac.uk

University of Central Lancashire 
An application was considered and approved in November 2007 for work entitled "Mortality from lung cancer in the British cotton industry", to update a cohort study of some 3,500 workers in the British cotton industry and carry out an analysis of the risks of lung and other cancers. The updated data from this study will contribute to a large multi-national pooled analysis of cotton workers which is expected to be co-ordinated by the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer. The study will be led by Professor Damien McElvenny, with Professor David Coggon at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre in Southampton, and Professor Dick Heederik from the Institute of Risk Assessment Science at the University of Utrecht.

University of Edinburgh
A grant was awarded to Dr Simon Brown, Professor Bill MacNee and Professor Ken Donaldson for a twelve-month pilot study into the use of zebrafish as a model for nanoparticle technology. Dr Brown can be contacted on simon.brown@ed.ac.uk

University of Edinburgh/Professor Ken Donaldson
The Trustees agreed to fund a further ten year Colt Foundation Professorial Fellowship for Professor Ken Donaldson, to enable him to remain on a full-time basis in the University's ELEGI/Colt Research Laboratories within the Centre for Inflammation Research in the Medical School. This Fellowship commenced in 2007. Professor Donaldson can be contacted on ken.donaldson@ed.ac.uk

University of Aberdeen
A grant was awarded for a study entitled "Workplace health surveillance for occupational skin diseases - diagnostic accuracy and reliability of a teledermatology tool". The work is led by Dr Finlay Dick, with Dr Markus Steiner, Dr Sean Semple, Professor Jon Ayres, and Dr Anthony Ormerod, and started in mid-2007. Dr Finlay Dick can be contacted on f.dick@abdn.ac.uk

United Services Section of the Royal Society of Medicine
Following a meeting at the Institute of Naval Medicine with Surgeon Commodore Jim Sykes, it was agreed that the Foundation would sponsor the United Services Section of the RSM annual Research Prize from 2007. The Section Meeting is devoted to presentations by two military doctors in training from each of the three services. Abstracts are submitted to the Defence Postgraduate Dean during the year, and six speakers are selected. A prize is awarded to the speaker who gives the best presentation, with further prizes for the remaining speakers. This event is to be known as the Colt Foundation Research Prize Meeting from 2007.

University of Aberdeen
A two year grant of £141,000 was awarded to Professor Jon Ayres and Dr John Ross at the University of Aberdeen, with Professor Keith Palmer at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre in Southampton for work entitled "The effects of metal particles on inflammatory response in welders and non-welders". Professor Ayres can be contacted on j.g.ayres@abdn.ac.uk

University of Southampton
At the Trustees' Meeting in November 2005, a grant of £64,650 was awarded to Professor David Coggon at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre for a two year study entitled "Cross-cultural study of musculo-skeletal and other somatic symptoms and associated disability". A further grant to continue this work with a four year international collaborative study has also been agreed in principle, subject only to receipt of satisfactory individual proposals from the various countries concerned. Professor Coggon can be contacted on dnc@mrc.soton.ac.uk

University of Southampton
In November 2005, the Trustees agreed to fund a study led by Professor Keith Palmer at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre entitled "Risk factors for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and non-specific wrist-hand symptoms: Real differences or part of a continuum?". The study started in September 2006 and continue for a three year period at a cost of £135,167. Professor Palmer can be contacted on ktp@mrc.soton.ac.uk

National Heart and Lung Institute with the Royal Brompton Hospital
Asthma afflicts about ten percent of children in Western Europe, a figure which continues to rise. Its causes are poorly understood and undoubtedly complex. In part the disease reflects early exposure to allergens in the home, but this is probably not sufficient cause. The aim of the study is to examine which factors - environmental, infective and genetic - modify the role of allergen exposure in the development of the disease. The Foundation has been supporting this project, based in Ashford in Kent, since 1993, initially with a grant of £389,000 over five years, followed by subsequent grants to continue the work into 2007. The team was led by Professor Sir Anthony Newman Taylor.

Parallel studies - using the Colt protocol developed in Ashford - have started in Barcelona (Josep-Maria Anto), Menorca (Matias Torrent) and Munich (Erika von Mutius). In this way it will be possible to make comparisons with the Ashford findings, under quite different environmental conditions.

Further information can be obtained from Professor Paul Cullinan on p.cullinan@ic.ac.uk and the website for this project is www.asthmainashford.co.uk