Interdisciplinary Hub for the Study of Health and Age-related Conditions
Discover pioneering solutions to global health challenges, from disease prevention to active ageing technologies.

About the Interdisciplinary Hub for the Study of Health and Age-related Conditions
ÖØ¿ÚζSM's Interdisciplinary Hub for the Study of Health and Age-related Conditions (IhSHA) unites researchers from various disciplines to improve health outcomes and tackle the challenges of ageing. Our work spans a range of areas:
- Cancer research: Innovating treatments and improving early detection to enhance patient outcomes.
- Diabetes and cardiovascular research: Exploring lifestyle, genetic, and biological factors to combat these pervasive conditions.
- Vision, cognition, and neuroscience: Understanding how ageing affects brain function, vision, and sensory health.
- Infection and immunity: Addressing pressing issues like antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases.
- Drug discovery and delivery: Developing cutting-edge therapies for a healthier future.
- Sport, exercise, and public health: Encouraging healthier lifestyles, including the Safe You Project, which educates young athletes about doping risks.
- Technologies for assisted living: Harnessing tech to empower older adults to live independently and actively.
Explore our research themes
At IhSHA, we delve into multiple research areas to understand and improve human health across the lifespan.
This team aims to improve understanding of carcinogenesis, the early detection of cancer, patient treatment and quality of life through inter-disciplinary research.
Research interests and expertise span a range of areas including cell and molecular biology of cancer, the importance of inflammation, infectious agents, nutrition and biomarkers in cancer, cancer diagnosis and imaging, anti-cancer drug design and delivery, and patient treatment and monitoring using the latest mobile health technologies.
We work with clinicians, pathologists, pharmacists, nurses, radiographers, medical physicists and engineers, and national and international collaborators from both academia and the pharmaceutical industry to investigate the mechanisms of tumour development, progression and metastasis, to develop novel treatments and diagnostic techniques and to make sure that our research will have a positive translational impact on the lives of people with cancer.
For more information, please contact Helmout Modjtahedi.
DCRG aims to improve patient treatment and quality of life through inter-disciplinary research.
Our expertise spans basic cell and molecular biology, drug design and delivery, diagnostics, and patient monitoring using the latest mobile health technology. We work with patients, clinicians, and international experts to investigate basic mechanisms of the disease process and to make sure that our research will have a positive impact on the lives of people with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The Drug Discovery, Delivery and Patient Care (DDDPC) research group at Kingston Universitycovers the areas of pharmacology, chemistry, drug discovery, delivery and development, pharmaceutical formulation, pharmaceutical analysis, nanotechnology and regulatory affairs.
The group's interdisciplinary research aims to improve quality of life by providing safe, effective, and innovative products and services. The research undertaken spans the diverse yet inter-connected areas of new drug and biological target discovery, pharmaceutical formulation and development of new drug delivery systems and patient care.
Researchers have world-class expertise in the synthesis and biological screening of new chemical entities, identification of new biological / drug targets, development of promising new molecules into usable medicines, and monitoring how patients respond to such new medicines. The DDDPC group members are actively involved in national and international research collaboration; they work with charities, non-profit organisations, human and veterinary pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and nutraceutical industry.
For more information, please contact the group leaders Raid Alany or Fawaz Aldabbagh.
The Infection and Immunity Research Group is a cluster of researchers from various schools with a particular interest in microbiology, parasitology, and virulence.
The Group exists to foster knowledge exchange and expand collaborative research within these areas. Interdisciplinary interactions with computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers serve to facilitate the expansion of the Group's activities beyond basic biological principles.
Our expertise spans a range of areas including molecular microbiology, basic and applied microbiology, molecular and cellular parasitology, parasite life cycles, immunology, natural products research, genomics, drug resistance, biodiversity, and rapid detection systems. Our work aims to answer some of the important questions concerning the biology of infectious agents and their impact on human health.
For more information, please contact Mark Fielder (microbiology) or Tony Walker (parasites and vectors).
Our research investigates the impact of sport, nutrition and exercise on health, wellbeing, disease and human performance as well as the influence of human behaviour and public health initiatives on long term health through inter-disciplinary research.
Our research expertise spans a wide range of areas including the effect of sport, exercise and nutrition at the cellular and molecular level, and their contribution to health and wellbeing, biomechanical, nutritional, physiological, pharmacological and psychological factors that affect human performance, and the influence of public health initiatives on human behaviour and vice versa.
We work with sport professionals, clinicians, regulatory bodies, patients and fellow researchers, both national and international, from the worlds of academia and industry to advance knowledge and understanding of factors that are major contributors to human performance and the health and wellbeing of individuals and populations.
Our research support includes a range of bodies and organisations including: the MRC/National Prevention Research Initiative Phase 4; the World Anti-Doping Agency; the Food Standards Agency; The British Academy; the Department for Business Innovation & Skills; the Laboratory of the Government Chemist; the National Measurement Office; the London Development Agency; Neal's Yard Remedies; GlaxoSmithKline; South West London Academic Network; The Organix Foundation; Kingston UniversityEnterprise Investment Fund; EU FP6; ESRC.
For more information please contact Judith Allgrove.
The Technologies for Active and Assisted Living theme is a cross-disciplinary theme that provides the technological arm to IhSHA and that is reflected in our group bringing together researchers with different expertise including staff from different faculties within the University.
Active and Assisted Living (AAL) focuses on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support people's health and safety, increasing their autonomy and well-being, by means of providing services from the automatic supervision of medication to intelligent monitoring.
These services are nowadays in great demand, due to the rapidly ageing populations. The European Statistical Office projects that by 2060, the ratio between working and retired people will have passed from four-to-one to two-to-one in the EU. In addition, EU member states spend nowadays approximately a quarter of their GDP on social protection. Such a demographic and economic context raises the concern of whether these high standards can be maintained. For this reason, allowing people to stay active and independent as they grow older is key to tackle the challenge of demographic ageing.
For more information please contact Jean-Christophe Nebel.
The group has expertise in optics of the eye, vision science, the higher visual processes and cognition using basic science: physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics and applying it to the sensory work on cross-disciplinary projects that investigate ageing of the eye and higher order sensory functions.
Our work has been funded by a range of sources including Research Councils, charities, industry and governmental departments. Current projects are supported by Fight for Sight, Essilor International, DSTL and the EU.
Our range of projects is wide including ocular and neural ageing and disease, biomedical optics, psychophysics, computational and neural physiology, ocular proteomics, nanotechnological applications to the eye, neuroscience and brain function.
For more information, please contact Andy Augousti.
Get involved with IhSHA
At IhSHA, we bring together expertise from across disciplines to address today’s complex health challenges. Established and early career researchers, post-doctoral fellows and research students are all involved in our research.
We holds a regular series of events with invited speakers of international renown selected from the seven themes represented in the Hub.
For more information please contact Professor Declan Naughton.