UCL is expanding while consolidating, with its shiny new institute dedicated to cancer research.
Laura McRobb
Last month, University College London (UCL) officially opened its new Cancer Institute. The state-of-the-art facility will employ over 300 cancer research scientists, drawn from both existing UCL faculty and external recruitment. The institute, next to UCL Hospital and other university facilities, could not be better located for translational research.
The Institute is housed in the bespoke Paul O’Gorman Building, built by Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. It includes 4,500 square metres of new laboratory space at the heart of the UCL campus.
Photography: Mark Humphreys.
A Nobel history
UCL has a fine tradition of biomedical research success. The university now lays claim to 11 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine, after alumnus Sir Martin Evans was announced as this year’s co-winner for pioneering gene knockout techniques.
“UCL is one of the largest biomedical universities in the world in terms of scientific output and the number of people working there,” comments Professor Ed Byrne, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Head of the Medical School. “An independent survey conducted for government recently ranked UCL as leagues ahead of other leading universities in terms of high citation papers in biomedical research”.
UCL’s north London portfolio includes several major research institutes, but making them all gel together has been a challenge. “In the past, the impact of biomedical research at UCL as a whole has not always been fully appreciated due to the high individual profile of some UCL institutes such as The Institute of Child Health and the Institute of Neurology,” comments Byrne. Bringing the university’s expertise in cancer research under one roof will help boost that profile.
Excellence expanded
The original idea for the concentration of scientific talent into a single large-scale institute has been around some time. “Approximately 10 years ago, UCL decided to consolidate cancer research,” says Professor Chris Boshoff, who was appointed as Director of the institute a year ago. A significant number of staff has been recruited externally in conjunction with major recruitment from within UCL. It is hoped that basic and translational cancer research at UCL will double as a result of the consolidation. “The institute will now allow us to recruit new groups, and expand existing groups,” says Boshoff.
Development opportunities
With all the pieces coming into place, what lines of research will the Institute explore? Boshoff lists the main areas as targeted cancer therapies, cancer genomics, infectious causes of cancer, haematological malignancies, head and neck cancer, cancers affecting adolescents and, in the future, brain cancer. The Institute is a move towards getting basic research out of the lab and into the healthcare system. “The centre allows researchers to translate outcomes to the clinic, for example in early stage clinical trials” says Byrne.
It also paves the way for the exploration of novel cancer research and new collaborations with other cancer research experts. “ We are currently negotiating with a number of excellent group leaders from North America and these might join us in 2008,” comments Boshoff.