Annual Review 2012: Challenge 4 - Investigating development, ageing and chronic disease

We aim to develop an integrated understanding of how the body develops, functions and ages, and of the factors that contribute to the onset and development of chronic disease.

In this year's ‘Annual Review’, we look at a new stem cell institute in Cambridge funded by the Trust and the Medical Research Council, new work being done in that field, and the former Wellcome Trust Governor who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his early work in stem cell research. We also welcome UK Biobank opening to researchers, research into how cells detect and respond to tissue damage, regulatory approval for monitoring technology funded for almost a decade by the Trust, and a solo show of poetry and comedy about one man's diagnosis of heart failure aged 30.

Further resources

Here are links to information relating to each of this year's 'Annual Review' stories in challenge 4:

Stem cell research (page 33)

• Press release: Wellcome Trust and MRC invest in Stem Cell institute
• Wellcome Trust-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute website
• Press release: Sir John Gurdon awarded Nobel Prize
• Feature: Changing fates
• News: New lab model of Alzheimer’s disease

UK Biobank opens (page 34)

• News: UK Biobank opens to researchers
• UK Biobank website

Helping wounds heal (page 35)

• News: Scientists uncover secrets behind rapid tissue repair
• 2012 ‘Developmental Cell’ paper
• Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research

Monitoring respiration (page 35)

• Covidien press release: FDA clearance of Nellcor respiration rate software
• Covidien: Nellcor Pulse Oximetry Monitoring
• Medical devices funded by Technology Transfer at the Wellcome Trust

Living with heart failure (page 35)

• Feature: Artists need to put themselves into their art
• New Scientist blog: Making art of traumatic heart failure

Image: Professor Sir John Gurdon. Credit: Wellcome Images