Researchers and clinicians at Southampton’s university hospitals have been awarded £15 million to help tackle obesity, poor nutrition, asthma, allergies and infections.

The five-year funding arrangement, announced by the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), will see the city’s pioneering nutrition and respiratory research brought together to form a new NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

A joint venture between University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and the University, the BRC will focus on taking discoveries out of the laboratory into the clinic.

“This award represents an opportunity to make a real difference to people’s lives and health by combining Southampton’s unique strengths in nutrition and respiratory clinical research as well as data, microbial and behavioural science,” said Professor Robert Read, a consultant and professor in infectious diseases and the new centre’s director.

“It gives us the means to bring new treatments into care and improve not only our patients’ health, but also people across the region and nationwide.”

The centre will also utilise Southampton’s expertise in data science to combine clinical and research data in real-time to help improve care, as well as use microbial science and behavioural science to understand how bacteria influence our nutritional and respiratory health, tackle antimicrobial resistance and help people make informed choices about their health.