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MRC Centres of Research Excellence: IDRM Researchers At The Forefront of Advanced Gene Therapeutics Development
The Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UKRI, has announced the launch of its first two Centres of Research Excellence (CoRE) with the IDRM’s Professor Paul Riley and Professor Stephan Sanders playing integral roles in the development of transformative therapeutics for currently untreatable diseases.
The MRC/BHF CoRE in Advanced Cardiac Therapies, co-funded with the British Heart Foundation (BHF), will be co-directed by Professors’ Paul Riley (IDRM) and Andrew Baker (University of Edinburgh), with Professor Mauro Giacca (King’s College London) leading the centre. It will focus on developing innovative therapies designed to stimulate the repair and regeneration of damaged or lost heart tissue in heart attack patients and those with established heart failure.
“To tackle heart disease, it’s critical that any therapy we develop needs to be globally applicable and affordable, so it can be rolled out at cost and imbedded in healthcare systems. Our goal is to bring one or more novel advanced therapies for heart failure to be ready for clinical trials in the first seven years of the programme.” – Professor Paul Riley
The MRC CoRE in Therapeutic Genomics will be directed by Professor Sanders, alongside co-director Professor Deborah Gill (University of Oxford), and Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Professor Jennifer Doudna (Innovative Genomics Institute). This centre will focus on transforming the diagnosis and treatment of genetic disorders by reprogramming existing therapies to treat new disorders, using AI to process data from patients at an unprecedented scale.
“Reprogramming genetic therapies has the potential to treat thousands of genetic disorders. The new Centre will help create a paradigm shift in the knowledge, infrastructure, technology, and industry regulation so that we can make safe and effective patient-customised therapies en masse.” – Professor Stephan Sanders
The MRC CoRE’s bring together leading UK and global expertise, harnessing top talent from academia and industry to drive innovation and transform biomedical and health research. As a trailblazing institute, the IDRM already unites world-class researchers and fosters ground-breaking collaborations across its core themes of cardiovascular science, neuroscience, and immunology. Being an integral part of not one, but two, of these MRC CoRE’s further strengthens the Institute’s mission, amplifying its impact and reinforcing its leadership in transformative research.
“The award of MRC and MRC/BHF-funded Centres of Research Excellence, residing in-full or in part within the IDRM, is a fantastic achievement for the Institute and Oxford. This positively reflects on the quality of our scientific leadership, world leading technical expertise and facilities, the local research environment, and high calibre academic and industry partners. We look forward to these Centres developing advanced therapies targeting rare neurodevelopmental disorders and cardiovascular disease respectively over the next 7-14 years and contributing significantly to the major goals of the IDRM” – Professor Paul Riley
Read more here:
MRC launches two £50m centres for cutting-edge gene therapies – UKRI