1 November 2006

Sir James Black visit

Sir James Black, Nobel Prize winner and former Chancellor of the University of Dundee, has returned to Dundee to visit the £20 million research centre which now bears his name.

Sir James, who stood down as Chancellor of the University earlier this year, visited the University’s College of Life Sciences to be given a full tour of the Sir James Black Centre, a state-of-the-art research facility which is home to 250 scientists and staff conducting research into diabetes, cancer and tropical diseases.

"It is an absolute pleasure to be back here and to see this terrific building," said Sir James.

"It is the busiest beehive I have ever been - everywhere I’ve been in it and everyone I have spoken to has been absolutely buzzing! It is very exciting to see the work that is being done here, and that Dundee is continuing to push forward so strongly in Life Sciences."

"It is all a bit of a change from the kind of laboratories I was used to working in, and extremely impressive."

The Sir James Black Centre was opened in June this year by Professor Sydney Brenner, another Nobel Laureate and one of the world’s legendary figures in the field of genetics.

The centre (formerly known as the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research) adjoins the Wellcome Trust Biocentre and provides a ‘citadel of science’ which is now a central feature of the city skyline.

The Centre was funded by commercial income generated by the College of Life Sciences, University investment funding and a fundraising campaign led by the Dundee-born actor Brian Cox, a Type 2 diabetes sufferer, and two of Dundee’s most prominent scientists - Professor Sir Philip Cohen, the second most cited biologist in the world and Professor Michael Ferguson, an internationally recognised authority in parasitology.

The addition of the Centre to existing facilities means that Dundee has a larger medical research complex than the National Institute for Medical Research in London.

For media enquiries contact:

Anna Day
Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: a.c.day@dundee.ac.uk