Celebrating Clinical Trials Day 2025

Clinical Trials Day is celebrated around the world, on 20 May, to raise awareness of the importance of clinical trials for advances in research and healthcare.

Published 20 May 2025

To mark this year’s Clinical Trials Day, we're supporting the Be Part of Research campaign – a national register where anyone can sign up to be contacted about research studies that may be relevant to them. The platform also offers a window into the wide range of health and care research happening across the UK.

Visit the Be Part of Research NIHR website

Take part in our research

Your participation in clinical trials plays a key role in developing new treatments, advancing our understanding of illnesses, and enhancing patient care.

There’s plenty of opportunities to get involved. You can join our Research Interest List, this ensures the Research team will get in contact if a suitable study comes up.

Use our online for to join our Research Interest List

Current research studies

Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) study

• This study will explore genetic and environmental factors associated with risk for depression and anxiety disorders, to understand these common disorders and help develop better treatments.
• You can take part in this study if you’re over the age of 16 and have experienced clinical anxiety and/or depression in your life (a medical diagnosis is not required).
• We’re also looking for participants who have not experienced anxiety or depression to help us compare and understand why some individuals develop these illnesses.
• If you’d like to take part, please answer ‘yes’ to ‘Did you hear about the GLAD study through any NHS Trust’ and then select ‘Berkshire Healthcare’.
• Visit the GLAD study website to find out more

Genes & Health study

• Genes & Health is one of the world’s largest community-based genetics studies, focused on improving health among people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage by analysing the genes and health of 100,000 local people.
• You can participate if you’re over 16 and of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, British-Bangladeshi, or British-Pakistani descent.
• Participation involves providing a saliva sample and completing two short forms.
• If you’d like to take part, please select ‘Berkshire Healthcare’ when asked where you heard about this study.
• Visit the Genes & Health website to find out more

Dementia study

• Dementia can have a great impact on the lives of people living with the condition and their caregivers. As it progresses, the person with dementia will experience more difficulties and will gradually become more dependent on others.
• This pilot study will consider how these changes in the memory and thinking skills, or cognition, relate to changes that can be determined from blood samples.
• This study is recruiting participants aged 50 years and above who live in Berkshire and have been diagnosed with dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment, or have reported to their GP with memory complaints.
• We’re also looking for cognitively healthy individuals aged over 50 as part of this comparison study.
• Contact our research team to find out more by quoting 'FAST' study
  
  

Celebrating our research team and participants

We're also taking this opportunity to recognise the incredible work of our research team and all the participants who help drive healthcare forward. Recently, our Research team were on the Health Bus in Slough to help raise awareness of current research studies and encourage more people in the community to get involved.

Take a look at what our Research team have achieved over the past year:

Find out more

Take part in our research and learn more about our open studies