HRH The Duke of Edinburgh officially opened the new £20m Clinical Research Imaging Centre at Queens Medical Research Institute Little France last week, which is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian.

Occupying a large proportion of the ‘shell’ basement level within the existing Queen’s Medical Research Institute at Little France, the new Clinical Research Imaging Centre (CRIC) will constitute a new centre of excellence, set to be at the cutting edge of Clinical Research.

The major components of the Centre constitute:

-Radiochemistry Suite (GMP production environment, including Cyclotron, for creation and supply of FDGs for the CRIC initially and other facilities in due course);

-128-slice Siemens mCT PET Computer Tomography Scanner;

-Siemens MAGNETOM Verio T3 Whole-Body MRI Scanner;

-Toshiba Aquilion ONE 320-slice CT Scanner;

-Allied support accommodation – Control rooms, tech. rooms, patient and staff facilities.

In respect of M&E Services, the area is heavily serviced with discrete systems bespoke to each clinical facility, the integration of which was further complicated by the construction of the facility into an existing, ‘live’ research laboratory building. Hulley & Kirkwood were employed as a sub-consultant to the Design Team leaders, Architects, Boswell, Mitchell & Johnston to provide full design Mechanical and Electrical Professional Services.

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The firm, along with the other Design Team members, were the original team who designed the QMRI building for the University. Turnkey, Contractor Design Portions (CDPs) formed part of the Contract, and extended to the T3 MRI and Radiochemistry Suites. In these instances we provided shell M&E Services and supported the spatial coordination of their fit-out i.e. Helium quench pipe to roof.

We were integral to the development of the User Requirement Specification and Employer’s Requirements for the GMP Radiochemistry Suite. H&K prepared and issued coordinated services information (comprising our own and Messrs Bassaire) to support Design Qualification for the integrated GMP facility. Throughout the design and installation process we required to integrate with several key suppliers including GE Healthcare, Siemens, Berthold Radiation Monitoring, Toshiba, Bassaire and Von Gahlen.

Head of Research and Development for NHS Lothian, Professor David Newby, said: "This world-leading new Centre brings together the very latest imaging technologies in a single facility.

"With the University of Edinburgh's world-leading clinical research, this will allow a major improvement in our ability rapidly to investigate and understand the most serious and distressing diseases in our patients."

Professor Edwin Van Beek, Director of the Clinical Research Imaging Centre, said: "There have been dramatic advances in imaging over the past decade, changing the way we look at disease and our understanding of the biological processes involved. As opposed to simply looking at the structures of the body - such as the heart and the brain - we can look at how organs are functioning in real time. This will not only help us better understand disease but it will help us to improve both diagnosis and treatments."

(GK)