Wellcome Trust brings academia and industry together to share clinical and research expertise
17 July 2008
The training programmes will enable clinicians drawn from across a range of specialities to pursue MSc, PhD and postdoctoral research opportunities. The aim is to produce a cadre of clinicians with the expertise to design and conduct studies for developing and evaluating novel therapies in humans. The recipient academic institutions are Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, Newcastle University and a consortia of Scottish universities.
Recognising that the relevant expertise is distributed in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry, the Wellcome Trust is bringing together these two sectors to provide the students with access to cutting-edge technology and the latest approaches. The industrial partners, who include GlaxoSmithKline and Wyeth, have agreed to match the £11 million of Wellcome Trust funding.
In December 2006, a report by Sir David Cooksey identified the need for better integration between basic and translation research, a call welcomed by the Wellcome Trust. The Trust has been at the forefront of a number of initiatives to bring together basic and clinical scientists and already has a well-established programme of technology transfer funding for translation science.
"The vital task of translating discoveries about the cause of disease into new medicine requires clinical scientists with skills in both medicine and pharmacology," says Dr Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest medical research charity. "The Wellcome Trust is delighted to be able to support these four partnerships between universities and industry. These programmes will train a new generation of clinical scientists skilled in translational medicine and therapeutics.
"Those trained in these programmes will have the expertise to design and conduct studies aimed at developing and evaluating novel therapies in humans. This approach will help to ensure that exciting progress in fundamental research feeds into clinical practice in ways that benefit patients."
The Wellcome Trust's new Interdisciplinary Training Programmes for Clinicians in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics recognises that in order to be able to develop novel therapeutics, it is essential to have researchers who understand both drug development and design and human physiology. Both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry have identified a decline in specialties such as clinical pharmacology, which until recently helped provide this training.
The four new programmes are:
Training Programme in Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Medicine
- Partners: Newcastle University, Roche, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, PTC Therapeutics and GlaxoSmithKline.
- Scientific focus: Mitochondrial medicine, liver disease and diabetes, neuromuscular disease, inflammatory disease, rheumatology and dermatology, and chronic respiratory disease.
Translational Medicines and Therapeutics at the University of Cambridge
- Partners: University of Cambridge and GlaxoSmithKline.
- Scientific focus: Metabolic science, neuroscience, oncology, therapeutic immunology, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, cardiovascular and pharmacological sciences.
Scottish Translational Medicine and Therapeutics Initiative
- Partners: The Universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow, and pharmaceutical partner Wyeth Research.
- Scientific focus: Cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, musculoskeletal disease, neuroscience and reproductive health.
Experimental Medicine for New Therapeutics Development
- Partners: Imperial College London and GlaxoSmithKline.
- Scientific focus: Likely to include neuroscience, metabolic medicine, respiratory medicine, inflammation, cardiovascular sciences and renal medicine.
Image: SEM of red blood corpuscles; David Gregory and Debbie Marshall, Wellcome Images
Contact
Craig Brierley
Media Officer
Wellcome Trust
T +44 (0)20 7611 7329
E
c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk
Notes for editors
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £600 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.