Miscarriage research centre could help thousands of families

The UK's first national clinical research centre dedicated to early miscarriage is to open at Imperial College London. The National Early Miscarriage Centre, which will be funded by Tommy's - the UK baby charity that funds research into miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth - will comprise a partnership between Imperial College London , the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick. The three sites will run specialist clinics enabling 24,000 women per year to access treatment and support and participate in Tommy's research studies.Tommy's aims to halve the number of miscarriages by 2030 by funding medical research to understand the cause and effect of miscarriage. Professor Tom Bourne , from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial, said: "We are almost always asked four questions by women after a miscarriage: Why did it happen? Was it my fault? Will it happen again? Can I reduce the risk of it happening in a future pregnancy? By harnessing the expertise at the new national centre, we have a real opportunity to start giving women the answers they need." The centre, which will be the largest of its kind in Europe, builds on established collaborations between research groups at the universities. Opening on the 1st April, it will seek to understand why miscarriage happens, if it is likely to happen again, how to prevent it, and how to provide appropriate aftercare. The collaboration harnesses the complimentary areas of research expertise in the three universities in areas ranging from endometrial biology, metabolomics, microbiome studies, psychology, biomarker discovery and ultrasonography to running large clinical trials.