When Yorkshire’s wool trade was still booming it was support from the Clothworkers Company which played a key role in creating what was to become Leeds University
Now a £1.75m grant from the same organisation is to help academics keep the region at the cutting edge of textiles in the 21st century.
The donation will help fund Leeds University’s research in the field of “technical textiles” developing health care products which could benefit millions of people.
Expertise in textiles might not sound like a modern day science, but Leeds University’s work will help to:
* Create new filters to remove impurities from blood to enable safer transfusions;
* Provide better continence management; and
* Create new “intelligent dressings” to improve the healing rates of chronic wounds and products to fight hospital acquired infections.
The Clothworkers Foundation grant will help fund new research equipment and has meant the university has been able to appoint a new professor in textile technology Chris Carr, and create a new research centre to drive forward the work.
Prof Carr has joined Leeds’ Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare from Manchester University. He said: “When you look at your career and think of all the academic papers you have written you can ask yourself: ‘Has any of this really made a difference?’ Working on research that you know can result in a product being used in healthcare and make a difference to a patient’s life is one of the things that really motivates you.”
The research is being done by academics specialising in both textiles and medicine, with the university able to carry out its own clinical trials.
Prof Carr added: “What really excites me is that there is this two-way flow of information. Clinicians here work with patients on a daily basis and can tell us exactly what patients need – what works and what doesn’t.”
Developing new products could impact on the health of millions of people.
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