Life Sciences Expansion at Dundee

The internationally renowned research base at the College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee is being expanded with a new £12.5 million Centre for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research.

Around 200 new research jobs in Life Sciences will be added once the CTIR is complete, adding to the 1000-plus scientists, research students and support staff from 62 countries already at the College. Construction work is scheduled to finish in autumn 2013.

“This is another major expansion for the College of Life Sciences that will significantly enhance our capabilities across key areas of research,” said Professor Michael Ferguson, Dean of Research in the College of Life Sciences.

“The high-level objectives are to enhance translational research by expanding drug discovery capacity, to enhance computational biology, mathematical biology and biophysics, and to provide future expansion space.

“We already have very strong drug discovery programmes in the area of neglected tropical diseases - including African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), Leishmaniasis, Chagas’ Disease, tuberculosis and malaria – which are producing strong candidates for drug development. We expect to see these leading to effective drugs for at least one of these diseases.

“We are also addressing other unmet medical needs. What we aim to do is translate our basic research in areas like cancer and eczema, and other diseases, to produce chemical agents that can tackle these problems in an innovative way.

“Universities are very good at innovation. What they haven’t been quite so good at is developing the capability to translate that innovation into new medicines and applications. This new Centre will help us provide that bridging point.”

The CTIR will also bring experimentalists into juxtaposition with mathematical, biophysical and computational biology, breaking down the barriers between the scientific disciplines to facilitate innovative translation of biological and drug discovery research into new therapeutics.