Our Goal: The POSAT training scheme aims to train 4 PhD qualified early stage researchers with expertise in translational research within the field of transplantation Immunobiology. Furthermore, the knowledge and insight gained will have broader applicability to any chronic inflammatory disease and facilitate their entry into the professional market thereafter. Thus, the graduates of the programme will be able to apply their skills in the broader field of the immunology of human disease and will be qualified to work in private industry or higher education.

The POSAT research training programme has been designed along radically different lines to the conventional 3-year laboratory-based PhD research programme hosted by this Medical Faculty at Newcastle University. In additional to conventional research-specific and transferrable skills training, each POSAT trainee will receive formal teaching and work experience whilst on secondments. They will also spend between 8-9 months (23% of total time) working with these industrial partners, focusing in their own research and enhancing their product development capability.

This private sector contact is seen a quintessential component which has been tailored to enhance each trainee’s work capability. Indeed, each of the multi-faceted and novel research training projects can function as a result of shared technological capability and expertise between industry – academia and health service.

Through the different projects designed for each trainee, graduates of the POSAT programme are currently:

• Developing research skills at the forefront of Immunobiology, with specific relevance for investigation of transplantation and inflammatory diseases

• Improving his or her understanding of the basic chemistry underpinning the design of small molecule drugs and peptides engineered to modify inflammatory processes

• Developing a deep understanding of private-sector drug development from identification of product niches to drug design, pre-clinical validation, toxicity testing, pharmacokinetics, clinical trial design and satisfying the regulatory requirements before final marketing

• Gaining an appreciation of the importance of demonstrating intellectual property, invention and patent law as part of entrepreneurship