7 November 2007

Wellcome Trust provides £6.2 million backing for Dundee Life Sciences

The University of Dundee has been awarded more than £6 million in grants from the Wellcome Trust to establish a major new research centre in the College of Life Sciences and add new infrastructure for the Drug Discovery Unit.

The bulk of the funding is a £5 million award to Professor Angus Lamond to establish the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression at the University. The award covers a five-year period, and includes funding for 10 posts and for the purchase of new equipment.

This award builds on the outstanding work which has been carried out by Professor Lamond and colleagues in the Division of Gene Regulation and Expression, which was established in 1997 after the opening of the Wellcome Trust Biocentre (WTB).

Many human diseases - including cancers and inherited genetic disorders such as Down's Syndrome - are characterised by abnormal gene expression.

Gene expression is the process by which the DNA sequence information in a gene is used by cells to make a functional product, which is usually a protein. By examining these gene expression processes and studying how they can go wrong, researchers can build a molecular understanding of human diseases and the basic biological processes involved in cell growth and development.

The work to be carried out in the new Wellcome Centre will help to build the detailed molecular understanding of these processes that is needed to develop new treatments.

"Our aim has always been to build a major international centre for research on Gene Expression that is integrated with the other world-class research being performed elsewhere in Dundee," said Professor Lamond, who will be the Director of the new Wellcome Trust Centre.

"We had already gone a long way to achieving that but this award from the Wellcome Trust really takes us on to a higher level. This is a great endorsement from the Trust for the work we are doing here."

"The Division was effectively started from scratch 10 years ago and in that time we have become established as a centre with a worldwide reputation. The award of Centre status from the Wellcome Trust cements that reputation and the new funding it brings will boost our work at Dundee for the next five years and beyond."

The present Division of Gene Regulation and Expression occupies an entire floor of the Wellcome Trust Building and Sir James Black Centre at Dundee, accommodating twelve independent research groups recruited to Dundee from institutes in Europe, the USA and England.

Wellcome Trust Research Centres are centres of excellence conducting work of major international significance within designated fields of study. The centres provide intellectually stimulating environments that encourage scientific collaboration and productivity, and attract the most able scientists from the UK and abroad.

A further £1.2 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust has been awarded to Professors Alan Fairlamb, Michael Ferguson and Julie Frearson to support their work in the Division of Biological Chemistry and the Drug Discovery Unit, again based within the College of Life Sciences.

The grant supports key elements of infrastructure including high performance computing, proteomics and crystallography.

"We are very grateful to the Wellcome Trust for their continued support," said Professor Ferguson, who is Dean of Research in the College of Life Sciences. "This particular award underpins the research we are doing in tropical diseases and other key areas."

The Drug Discovery Unit was established with the help of an £8.1million grant from the Wellcome Trust and was opened in 2006 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Last month the Wellcome Trust announced its backing for two major post-graduate programmes at the University.

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk

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