The Scottish Government announced on April 20th that they were providing £10 million to help set up the Scottish Institute for ceLL Signalling (SCILLS) in Dundee. The founding Director of the Institute will be Sir Philip Cohen, who is currently the Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit (MRC-PPU). The £10 million will be used to set up the first division of SCILLS, namely a Protein Ubiquitination Unit. This will be located on the fourth floor of The Sir James Black Centre in the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, immediately above the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit. It is anticipated that the Protein Ubiquitination Unit and the MRC-PPU will interact closely and Sir Philip will remain as the Director of the MRC-PPU.
The MRC-PPU was set up before the area of protein phosphorylation had become of major interest to the pharmaceutical industry. The aim of the Protein Ubiquitination Unit is to develop exceptional strengths in another field of cell signalling, which is predicted to become of major importance for drug discovery in the future. Dundee has already begun to develop significant strengths in protein ubiquitination in recent years and SCILLS will enable a critical mass of key players in this field to be built up to stimulate Scotland's biotechnology industry in the future.
The MRC-PPU was set up before the area of protein phosphorylation had become of major interest to the pharmaceutical industry. The aim of the Protein Ubiquitination Unit is to develop exceptional strengths in another field of cell signalling, which is predicted to become of major importance for drug discovery in the future. Dundee has already begun to develop significant strengths in protein ubiquitination in recent years and SCILLS will enable a critical mass of key players in this field to be built up to stimulate Scotland's biotechnology industry in the future.