The Infections and Immunity Board of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has awarded a grant of almost £1.5 million to Philip Cohen and his team to carry out research over the next five years on the mechanisms that prevent inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The award is to follow up significant findings which have identified potential new targets for drugs to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Commenting on the award Philip said, 'About six years ago I decided to change the field of my research to try and understand how the innate immune system not only defends the human body against infection by bacteria and viruses, but also how the deregulation of this system can lead to chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, such as Arthritis, Asthma, Colitis, Lupus, Psoriasis and Sepsis. I made this decision because I felt that the expertise and approaches that I had developed while working out how insulin regulates the synthesis of glycogen many years ago could be exploited to elucidate a very different biological control system that is also of great medical importance. Getting to grips with the complex field of immunology, with which I was previously unfamiliar, as well as the field of ubiquitylation which is so important in the control of immunity, has been a huge learning experience, and I am still learning! However, over the past few years my decision to enter this field has started to pay off and my team are now making interesting discoveries that promise to significiantly advance our understanding of this area.
It would have been very difficult to change my research to a field in which I had no previous track record had I not been working within an MRC Unit. I would therefore like to thank the MRC for setting up the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at Dundee in 1990 because it is the long term core funding provided to MRC Units that enables the scientists that work in them to tackle ambitious and challenging problems without worrying about where their next research grant will come from,'
Commenting on the award Philip said, 'About six years ago I decided to change the field of my research to try and understand how the innate immune system not only defends the human body against infection by bacteria and viruses, but also how the deregulation of this system can lead to chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, such as Arthritis, Asthma, Colitis, Lupus, Psoriasis and Sepsis. I made this decision because I felt that the expertise and approaches that I had developed while working out how insulin regulates the synthesis of glycogen many years ago could be exploited to elucidate a very different biological control system that is also of great medical importance. Getting to grips with the complex field of immunology, with which I was previously unfamiliar, as well as the field of ubiquitylation which is so important in the control of immunity, has been a huge learning experience, and I am still learning! However, over the past few years my decision to enter this field has started to pay off and my team are now making interesting discoveries that promise to significiantly advance our understanding of this area.
It would have been very difficult to change my research to a field in which I had no previous track record had I not been working within an MRC Unit. I would therefore like to thank the MRC for setting up the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at Dundee in 1990 because it is the long term core funding provided to MRC Units that enables the scientists that work in them to tackle ambitious and challenging problems without worrying about where their next research grant will come from,'