We are delighted to announce that the outcome of our recent quinquennial review has been very successful and the Medical Research Council (MRC) has awarded our Unit approximately £24million core funding over the next five years to enable its researchers to undertake their investigations into the role that phosphorylation and ubiquitylation plays in regulating biology and how disruptions in these processes are linked to disease. This funding will support the majority of our PIs, Postdocs, PhD students researchers as well as the fantastic support staff who operate all the key scientific services that our scientists depend on.
The funding will also excitingly enable the MRC-PPU to expand and recruit three major new researcher groups to Dundee. These groups have already been recruited and will considerably expand the talent of our Units research. The newly appointed groups will relocate their laboratories from Toronto, London and Manchester to the MRC-PPU in October to December 2013 (these will be announced on our website soon).
This funding will also enable the integration into the MRC-PPU of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS), which was established at Dundee in 2008 following support of £10m from the Scottish Government click here for further information on the integration of SCLLS in the MRC-PPU.
The MRC-PPU already supports 16 research groups as well as the main Division of Signal transduction Therapy Laboratories (DSTT) who provide critical scientific services for our Unit researchers as well as the six major pharmaceutical companies that currently participate in this collaboration (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Merck Serono and Pfizer). Altogether the MRC-PPU supports 162 staff from 25 countries. This new core funding from the MRC will be critical in sustaining all of these staff positions. With the addition of three further groups to the Unit our staff number will probably expand to ~180 over the next few years.
Professor Dario Alessi, Director of the MRC-PPU, said, 'At these financially challenging times this is incredibly generous support from the MRC. It is a strong endorsement of our research that aims to improve our understanding of human diseases. Importantly this investment by the MRC will enable us to expand our research activities to new exciting areas such as investigating the role of ubiquitylation in human disease. It will also enable us to recruit new creative and talented researchers from all over the world to our Unit. Our researchers thrive on their collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry. Our ability to expand into the ubiquitylation research areas and to recruit additional researchers will greatly boost our links with the pharmaceutical industry. I hope that this will enable us to make a significant contribution towards aiding these companies develop new therapies for the treatment of diseases in the future. We will also use this new funding to ensure that we provide all of our staff with an extraordinary research and training experience. Funding will also support training of clinician scientists and increase our engagement with the clinical community to enhance translational opportunities for the ultimate benefit of patients. This is particularly welcome in the Centenary year of the MRC.'
The funding is announced in the week that the MRC celebrates 100 years of life saving research funded by the taxpayer. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayer's money in some of the best medical research in the world including the team at the MRC-PPU. Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, who recently visited the MRC-PPU said, 'It's important for people to know how crucial their own money has been in uncovering health improvements that have saved millions of lives. If I asked the person on the street, ‘did you know you've helped invent the MRI scanner and DNA fingerprinting, or helped make skin grafts work or proved the link between smoking and cancer?' â€Â_ he'd probably look blankly at me. And these discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg of what the taxpayer has funded - through the MRC - over the course of its history. On the MRC's 100 year birthday, I'd like everyone to celebrate their own contribution to making the UK a world leader in medical research. Long may MRC-funded research continue to have such an impact on the health and wealth of the UK and beyond.'
The funding will also excitingly enable the MRC-PPU to expand and recruit three major new researcher groups to Dundee. These groups have already been recruited and will considerably expand the talent of our Units research. The newly appointed groups will relocate their laboratories from Toronto, London and Manchester to the MRC-PPU in October to December 2013 (these will be announced on our website soon).
This funding will also enable the integration into the MRC-PPU of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS), which was established at Dundee in 2008 following support of £10m from the Scottish Government click here for further information on the integration of SCLLS in the MRC-PPU.
The MRC-PPU already supports 16 research groups as well as the main Division of Signal transduction Therapy Laboratories (DSTT) who provide critical scientific services for our Unit researchers as well as the six major pharmaceutical companies that currently participate in this collaboration (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Merck Serono and Pfizer). Altogether the MRC-PPU supports 162 staff from 25 countries. This new core funding from the MRC will be critical in sustaining all of these staff positions. With the addition of three further groups to the Unit our staff number will probably expand to ~180 over the next few years.
Professor Dario Alessi, Director of the MRC-PPU, said, 'At these financially challenging times this is incredibly generous support from the MRC. It is a strong endorsement of our research that aims to improve our understanding of human diseases. Importantly this investment by the MRC will enable us to expand our research activities to new exciting areas such as investigating the role of ubiquitylation in human disease. It will also enable us to recruit new creative and talented researchers from all over the world to our Unit. Our researchers thrive on their collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry. Our ability to expand into the ubiquitylation research areas and to recruit additional researchers will greatly boost our links with the pharmaceutical industry. I hope that this will enable us to make a significant contribution towards aiding these companies develop new therapies for the treatment of diseases in the future. We will also use this new funding to ensure that we provide all of our staff with an extraordinary research and training experience. Funding will also support training of clinician scientists and increase our engagement with the clinical community to enhance translational opportunities for the ultimate benefit of patients. This is particularly welcome in the Centenary year of the MRC.'
The funding is announced in the week that the MRC celebrates 100 years of life saving research funded by the taxpayer. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayer's money in some of the best medical research in the world including the team at the MRC-PPU. Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, who recently visited the MRC-PPU said, 'It's important for people to know how crucial their own money has been in uncovering health improvements that have saved millions of lives. If I asked the person on the street, ‘did you know you've helped invent the MRI scanner and DNA fingerprinting, or helped make skin grafts work or proved the link between smoking and cancer?' â€Â_ he'd probably look blankly at me. And these discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg of what the taxpayer has funded - through the MRC - over the course of its history. On the MRC's 100 year birthday, I'd like everyone to celebrate their own contribution to making the UK a world leader in medical research. Long may MRC-funded research continue to have such an impact on the health and wealth of the UK and beyond.'