Will Irving is a virologist and he works at the University of Nottingham and the University of Nottingham is intimately involved with STOP-HCV through a number of activities and he thinks first and foremost, he has been involved together with colleagues in Glasgow in setting up something called HCV Research UK, which is a national cohort of over 10,000 patients with Hepatitis C infection who have enrolled with their written, informed consent and donated to us their biological samples and their clinical data so that we can conduct research studies and all the clinical data is managed and looked after in Nottingham.  All the biological samples they have from these patients goes to our biobank in Glasgow.

 

As a result of this, HCV Research UK has supplied data and samples to a new of laboratories that are involved in STOP-HCV that have done some very sophisticated research looking at the host genetic background and what effect that has on Hepatitis C infection, looking at the genetics of the virus, looking at the host immune response and trying to identify markers which will tell us which patients are doing to do well and which patients are at perhaps higher risk of more severe outcomes from the Hepatitis C infection.