The DSTT Collaboration Celebrates 20 years

L-R: Dario Alessi, Pete Downes (University of Dundee), Philip Cohen and Malcolm Skingle (GSK) pictured at the reception to mark 20 years of the DSTT collaboration, held at the V&A Dundee on November 5th, 2018
L-R: Dario Alessi, Pete Downes (University of Dundee), Philip Cohen and Malcolm Skingle (GSK) pictured at the reception to mark 20 years of the DSTT collaboration, held at the V&A Dundee on November 5th, 2018

Our flagship DSTT (Division of Signal Transduction Therapy) collaboration with pharmaceutical companies is still going remarkably strongly after 20 years. Founded in 1998, it is believed to be one of the longest continuous collaborations between academia and pharmaceutical companies.

The DSTT collaboration allows knowledge gleaned from basic research on human diseases in therapeutic areas, including cancer, arthritis, lupus, hypertension and Parkinson’s disease, undertaken by the MRC PPU and School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, to be rapidly exploited by pharmaceutical companies. The goal is to reduce the time it takes to develop drugs and bring benefits to patients.

The Pharmaceutical companies exploit research, reagents and ideas that emerge from our research and in return we get numerous ideas, reagents and exciting opportunities, from our collaborations with companies. Our students and postdocs also gain valuable experience of working with pharmaceutical companies through the DSTT collaboration.

Over the last 20 years, the DSTT collaboration has attracted £60million of investment and helped accelerate the development of numerous drugs. In the current round of the collaboration (2016-2020), Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck have provided £7.2 million of support.