HORIBA UK announces that it has joined the LifeTIME Center for Doctoral Training (CDT) as an industry partner. This partnership aims to provide a new generation of scientists with skills and approaches to reduce and replace the need for animal testing, thereby transforming drug discovery, toxicology screening and regenerative medicine.

The lifeTIME CDT (Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine) is a partnership between the University of Glasgow, University of Birmingham, Aston University and CÚRAM – Science Foundation Ireland at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Offering fully-funded doctoral scholarships, CDT focuses on building high-value skills in a range of scientific disciplines to enable research students to develop non-animal technologies (NATs) that better mimic physiology and disease.

“HORIBA UK partners with universities to develop new methods for drug discovery and disease diagnosis.”

In partnership with industry, the lifetime CDT leverages knowledge exchange and co-creation in pioneering science to develop humanized 3D models from bioengineering, microfluidic, diagnostic and sensing platforms. As an industrial partner, HORIBA will co-create, support and oversee a 4-year research project to explore how spectroscopy can help develop new methods for cell screening and disease diagnosis based on animal-free research.

In addition to supporting cutting-edge research, industrial partners such as HORIBA also allow students to experience different industrial roles and build their multidisciplinary skills to guide their future career choices. Not only in academic/industrial research, but also in marketing, regulation, standards or policy. This provides student cohorts with the professional training needed to ultimately improve industrial and societal impact.

“Our involvement in doctoral training centers allows us to stay close to cutting-edge British science and enables us to give back by supporting and encouraging a new generation of scientists,” said Dr Simon FitzGerald, Technical Director, HORIBA UK. “We are especially excited to join lifeTIME CDT because we can enable and contribute to incredible science that will drive real improvements in disease diagnosis, medicine and clinical science. It covers a wide range of research conducted by world-renowned scientists, much of which is underpinned by the spectroscopy and measurement technologies that are at the heart of HORIBA’s expertise. HORIBA and the lifetime CDT is a perfect synergy!

Matthew Dalby, Professor of Cellular Engineering at the University of Glasgow and Director of lifeTIME CDT, said: “HORIBA will work with lifetime to make our models a reality, reduce and replace the need for animal testing and provide new skills to our doctoral students. The opportunities this partnership brings are enormous – HORIBA’s expertise in spectroscopic and analytical sciences will be of great benefit to our students and the science they do. Industry involvement really helps us provide better training and opportunities for our students. HORIBA and our other partner companies are essential to our success.

The CDT partnership also facilitates broader networking opportunities between industry partners and the many leading academics involved. This supports the discovery of potential synergies between HORIBA and leading research institutions to help identify and develop future technologies for new scientific advancements.

HORIBA has already proven its value as an industry partner with a number of other academic institutions, including the ReNU Doctoral Training Center which focuses on another key HORIBA market, energy. Other active scientific partnerships across a range of HORIBA areas of expertise include the University of Southampton (photonics), University of York, King’s College London and Guy’s Hospital (spectroscopy for disease diagnosis) , Northumbria University (new materials for display technology), Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and CPACT (Centre for Process Analysis and Control Technology).

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