The Chemistry of Health building, a new facility dedicated to the use of chemical techniques to combat disease, in particular neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, was officially opened today in Cambridge.
The building houses the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, a world-leading research facility focused on the misfolding of proteins in human cells.
The building has been funded by £17.6 million from Research England’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF), as well as with contributions from Elan Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca.
“The research carried out in this new facility has the potential to affect millions of lives around the world for the better,” said Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Toope, who opened the building today. “Through collaboration and the sharing of ideas, our research teams will work to find the keys that unlock the mysteries of neurodegenerative disorders, one of the greatest health problems of our age.”
A 2015 report suggested that by 2030, there will be 75 million people worldwide living with Alzheimer’s disease. While the number of cases of Alzheimer’s diseases and other neurodegenerative disorders continues to rise, so too do the costs to society.
The Centre for Misfolding Diseases is co-directed by Professor Sir Christopher Dobson, Professor Tuomas Knowles and Professor Michele Vendruscolo, three world leaders in their fields who have been studying the molecular origins of neurodegenerative diseases.
“This building will for the first time bring together a large number of scientists from different disciplines who are dedicated to establishing the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders and to identifying new ways for treating or preventing these debilitating conditions,” said Dobson.
“The treatment of neurodegenerative disorders represents a major challenge, requiring both the development of innovative biophysical approaches and their translation into diagnostic and therapeutic tools,” said Vendruscolo. “With this new building, we have created favourable conditions to combine these two steps.”
“This facility will be a crucial element in helping us to tackle the challenge of understanding the molecular mechanisms of dementia and develop effective ways to counteract them,” said Knowles.
The new building is also home to a Chemistry of Health Incubator, which will enable closer collaborations between researchers and industry and host spin-out companies in order to increase the rate at which scientific discoveries are translated into new therapies. The new incubator is the first in Cambridge to be directly integrated into a University department, and will provide the resources and complementary know-how required to ensure that fundamental research is ultimately used to develop new treatments for patients. The first spin-out company to move into the Incubator will be Wren Therapeutics, which is based on a ground-breaking drug discovery method for neurodegenerative disorders developed at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases.
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