Dundee shares in £23.2m MRC boost

The University of Dundee has been awarded almost £1million of £23m in new grants announced by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The MRC is accelerating innovative medical research with £23.3 million in new funding to take ground-breaking ideas from UK universities into industry and out to patients. The announcement was made today by Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson.

Mike Ferguson, Regius Professor of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, said, “The MRC funding in this area of life sciences is crucial in ensuring that opportunities for new therapies, diagnostics and medical devices reach patients.

“We are proud to be recipients of MRC translational funding and, through the activities of our scientists and our Drug Discovery Unit, to be key components of the UK innovation ecosystem.”

The funding will allow researchers to translate biological discoveries from Dundee and partner universities towards new therapeutics via the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) at the University, the only fully operational, fully integrated drug discovery group working across multiple diseases based within a UK university. It will also enable the DDU to build partnerships with industry.