About us

The Advanced Neurotherapies Centre is funded by Welsh Government, through Health and Care Research Wales.

We operate under the directorship of Professor William Gray with 31 principle investigators and collaborators, with a total grant income of over £34 million since its inception in 2015.

We were previously known as the Brain Repair and Intracranial Neurotherapeutics (BRAIN) Unit, focusing on developing novel therapeutics and treatment delivery systems for neurological conditions.

Building on research and organisational infrastructure created with Health and Care Research Wales and external funding since 2015, we were one of the first centres world-wide to deliver ASO therapies, and are now one of the first delivering gene therapies for HD and PD.

With HCRW funding we have also developed unique expertise in culturing living human brain tissue for research. However, early-phase trial failure due to ineffective and poorly quantified delivery, poses a real and significant threat to successful progression of promising ATMPs into clinical therapy.

Additionally, ATMP development suffers significant attrition at the preclinical to first-in-human trial transition, because animal models often fail to predict human tissue responses. Utilising living human brain tissue for confirming target engagement and toxicity is an emerging opportunity to de-risk clinical translation.

Thus, we are one of only a few centres worldwide with the research capacity to address the translational challenges of intra-cranial delivery by developing and investing in “delivery science” and reducing potential risks in the transition between preclinical studies and first in-human trials so they can happen more quickly.