Aim 1: Advancing knowledge

Progress 2007/2008

During the third year of the Plan we:

• committed £457 million in response-mode grant funding through our biomedical science funding streams to support outstanding researchers, teams and ideas
• provided an additional £77 million funding over the year for the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a world-leading genomics research centre playing a key role in ground-breaking international initiatives such as the 1000 Genomes Project and the International Cancer Genome Consortium
• continued to use Strategic Awards in Biomedical Science to support major research and training programmes; examples included:
  * an £8.7 million award to support the UK HIV Vaccine Consortium, which brings together research groups developing new HIV vaccine constructs and immunisation strategies
  * awards of £6.5 million to the Oxford Ion Channel Initiative (OXION), and £5 million to the London Pain Consortium to further develop their Trust-funded interdisciplinary research and training programmes in integrative physiology
• funded awards in priority research areas through targeted calls for proposals, including:
  * providing £30 million for genome-wide association studies that will expand the number of diseases investigated via the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium
  * awarding £9 million to support 17 projects utilising electronic patient records for biomedical research, in the first round of a joint initiative with the UK Research Councils
• provided significant funding contributions to the UK Clinical Research Collaboration initiatives on Centres for Excellence in Public Health and Translational Infection Research
• developed a successful bid to Government in partnership with the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK and University College London to acquire the land to construct the new world-leading UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation
• provided £13 million in grant funding via our Medical Humanities funding stream, including support for new Strategic Awards in Medical Humanities and Strategic Awards in Biomedical Ethics.

Future plans

During 2008/2009 we intend to:

• develop strategic focus areas in the biomedical sciences through Strategic Awards and targeted calls for proposals; priorities will include:
  * funding interdisciplinary research on neurodegenerative diseases, through a £30 million joint initiative with the MRC
  * progressing further calls for proposals for genome-wide association studies and research using electronic patient records and databases
  * developing new activity to support mouse phenotyping
• continue to use the advice of our strategy committees to explore emerging strategic topics, and develop Frontiers meetings and workshops to engage the wider community - themes for the year ahead will include: childhood obesity and behaviour; emerging infectious diseases; synthetic biology; and health and the built environment
• work with our partners to progress the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation and develop its scientific strategy and governance arrangements
• partner with other organisations to coordinate research activities to address key global health challenges - such as pandemic influenza, global nutrition and the health consequences of climate change (see Aim 5 - Facilitating research)
• develop our history of medicine funding strategies based on the outcomes of a review completed during 2007/2008 and take forward a new funding initiative in bioarcheology.

Indicators of progress

• Between 1 October 2007 and 30 September 2008, 4290 scientific papers associated with the Wellcome Trust were published in journals featuring in the PubMed database.
• The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and European Bioinformatics Institute placed first and second respectively in a June 2008 report on the UK's 'citations elite' (source: Science Watch, May/June 2008). In addition, based on publication output over the last decade, seven of the world's 12 most highly cited researchers in the field of microbiology are based at the Sanger Institute (source: Essential Science Indicators, 2008).
• Examples of our funded research that have contributed to important advances in knowledge include:
  * key studies led by Professor Gabriel Waksman to elucidate the three-dimensional protein structures of the secretion machinery in Gram-negative bacteria [PDF 68KB]
  * research undertaken by Professor David van Heel and colleagues to identify new genetic variants implicated in coeliac disease through genome-wide association studies [PDF 84KB], transforming our knowledge of the condition
  * research led by Professor Malcolm Parker to examine the role of nuclear receptors in the body’s handling of fats [PDF 116KB] - work that could identify new drug targets for the control of body weight and ovulation.