22 July 2004
£2m Wolfson Foundation Award for University CIR Campaign
The University of Dundee fundraising campaign, spearheaded by Professors Sir Philip Cohen and Michael
Ferguson and Hollywood actor, Brian Cox, to raise the final £4m towards the completion of the new £17.5m
Centre for Inter-Disciplinary Research (CIR) has received an incredible boost from the Wolfson Foundation
with the announcement of a £2m grant award towards building costs.
The Wolfson Foundation award comes just two weeks after the announcement of an award of £1m from the
European Regional Development Fund as a contribution towards the costs of fitting out two floors
designated for applied research in the CIR.
The £4m fundraising campaign was launched by Brian Cox in April 2003. The Centre for Inter-Disciplinary
Research will be built adjacent to the already successful Wellcome Trust Biocentre (itself the result of
the single largest donation ever given to a Scottish University) and will house 280 staff, including 180
additional scientists. The new facility will enable the expansion of teams dedicated to the discovery of
more effective treatments for diabetes and tropical diseases - the two fastest growing epidemics of the
developed and developing world. When completed, the entire research complex at the University of Dundee
campus, housing more than 750 scientists from more than 50 countries, will be larger than the National
Institute for Medical Research in London.
Professor Sir Philip Cohen, Director of Research at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, said "I am truly
indebted to the Wolfson Foundation for their generosity and belief in the importance of the research
carried out here in Dundee. This award recognises the world-class strength of bio-science research in
Dundee and the importance of the expansion of our teams in two areas of research that have the potential
to impact on millions of lives worldwide".
Joan Concannon, Director of External Relations at the University of Dundee said, "The Wolfson Foundation
has been a wonderful supporter of the University of Dundee over the years and we are particularly
grateful for their generosity towards this important project. All told our campaign has now raised more
than £2.5m from trust and foundations, incredible local support and philanthropic donations. We will be
concentrating our efforts to raise the final £1.5m required to complete the new facility, scheduled to
open in the summer of 2005".
Notes for Editors:
Award
The Wolfson Foundation award specifically funds the costs of the Computational Chemistry, High-Throughput
Screening and Medicinal Chemistry facilities for research in tropical diseases in the new building to be
led by Professor Michael Ferguson, one of the world’s leading experts in tropical and parasitic disease
research.
Tropical Diseases Research:
Malaria is the single biggest killer of children in the world claiming more than 1 million lives a year -
1 child dies every 30 seconds from malaria - and affects the world’s poorest people in developing
countries. Malaria is becoming resistant to the traditional drugs used for treatment and very few new
drugs are available to take their place. Because of the low health-care budgets in sub-Saharan Africa
(about £10 per person per year, compared with over £2-£3 thousand pounds per person per year in the
developed world) the pharmaceutical industry is largely uninterested in developing drug treatment for
this and many other tropical diseases. University-based research is therefore critical to the search for
new medicines to combat these appalling diseases."
Dundee boasts one of the leading research divisions in Europe studying African sleeping sickness, Chagas'
disease, Leishmaniasis and malaria, who are based in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Molecular
Microbiology in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre. This research will be enhanced in the CIR, which is under
construction and will be joined to and fully integrated with the Wellcome Trust Biocentre. The CIR will
include a new purpose-built Division of Drug Development which will house world-class facilities in
medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry, computational chemistry and compound screening laboratories,
aimed at developing new, safer and more effective drug therapies for the treatment of global parasitic
diseases as well as new treatments for diabetes, cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Information on the CIR fundraising campaign can be found at
www.dundee.ac.uk/externalrelations/funds/index.htm or by telephoning Joan Concannon, Director of
External Relations on 01382 345 565/j.concannon@dundee.ac.uk
The Wolfson Foundation is a charitable foundation set up in 1955 whose aims were stated by the Founder
Trustees to be the advancement of science and medicine, health, education, the arts and humanities. These
remain the aims of the Trustees today. As a general policy, grants are given to act as a catalyst, to
back excellence and talent and to provide for promising future projects which may currently be
under-funded, particularly for renovation and equipment. Grants are made to universities for student
accommodation, equipment for research, new buildings and renovations.
By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk | 
