Dundee on a scientific charge

DUNDEE University moved a step closer to cementing its reputation as a world centre for scientific research yesterday, after it was awarded a crucial £2 million grant by the Wolfson Foundation towards its new £17.5m research building.

The latest award, following quickly on the heels of a 1m grant from the European Regional Development Fund, means Dundee’s new Centre for Inter-Disciplinary Research (CIR) is firmly on course for its summer 2005 opening date.

The CIR is being built next to Dundee’s world-renowned research hub, the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, and will eventually house 280 staff. This would bring the total number of scientists on the campus up to more than 750 from more than 50 countries - more than any comparable facility in the UK.

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At this size, the new CIR and Wellcome campus will dwarf the National Institute for Medical Research in London, firmly reinforcing Dundee’s status at the forefront of medical research.

Spearheaded by Professors Sir Philip Cohen and Michael Ferguson, along with Scottish actor Brian Cox, the university is aiming to raise 4m of the total 17.5m target. Following yesterday’s contribution, it is now only 1.5m short.

The majority of the money has been provided by a combination of the Scottish Research Infrastructure Fund, Scottish Enterprise, and the university’s own School of Life Sciences. Local campaigners, having already attracted donations from Dundee City Council, local charity the Matthew Trust, and Tesco, are now faced with the task of stumping up the rest.

Professor Coen, director of research at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, said: "I am truly indebted to the Wolfson Foundation for the 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."

The University in Dundee is widely recognised as being a leading European research facility, with a recent study by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia concluding that Dundee was the "most quoted university in Europe".

According to the research, Dundee’s scientists were more frequently cited than Cambridge, Oxford or University College London.

And the successful development of the CIR will do nothing to diminish its reputation.

The CIR will focus on developing more effective treatments for diabetes and tropical diseases, which are two of the fastest growing epidemics in the developed and developing worlds. Malaria, which will be a prime target once the centre opens, is the single largest killer of children in the world, claiming more than 1 million lives a year. It is estimated that one child dies every 30 seconds from the disease, but it has become resistant to traditional drugs.

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But malaria is largely ignored by the pharmaceutical industry, largely because it predominantly affects the world’s poorest people.

Developing countries generally have healthcare budgets of about 10 per person each year dwarfed by the 2,000 to 3,000 of the developed world.

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