Update: Super-laboratory for London

9 January 2008

On 5 December 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that a derelict 3.5-acre site in the heart of London, between the British Library and St Pancras International, will be converted into Europe’s largest medical research laboratory.

The Government sold the land to a partnership comprising the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and University College London (UCL).

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI), which is expected to open in 2013, is likely to cost around £500m to build. The Wellcome Trust has committed £100m to the project.

The UKCMRI will gather science teams from the MRC’s National Institute for Medical Research, the CRUK Research Institute and UCL, working closely with researchers located in surrounding universities and research-intensive hospitals.

Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University in New York and former director of CRUK, will head an independent science planning committee to determine the new Centre’s scientific mission and the facilities needed to achieve it.

The funding partners will also work with the local community on the plans and shape of the UKCMRI, which will later develop activities to engage the public in science and promote science education among local children.