Plans to transform the London Olympic park into a research centre may be extinguished before the Olympic torch ever reaches Stratford, the east London neighbourhood where the 2012 Games will be based. The Wellcome Trust has threatened to rescind its £1 billion investment proposal to convert the site into a “life sciences innovation centre”, according to a report in today’s Financial Times.

The Wellcome Trust was one of three finalists to develop the Olympic site after the 2012 Games. In March, the biomedical research charity announced plans to develop research facilities there, creating 7,000 jobs. The Olympic Development Authority is planning to meet this week to settle on a favoured bid.

The sticking point appears to be the UK and London government’s plans to sell off the Olympic village and its 2,800 units separately from the rest of the facility. The Wellcome Trust hoped to use profits from selling these units to support development of the life sciences centre. “We think the Olympic Park must be treated as a holistic single entity, rather than the current strategy of a piecemeal disposal of sites over time. The whole can be made greater than the sum of the parts,” Peter Pereira Gray, Wellcome’s head of investment, told the FT.

Specific details on the proposed centre are tough to come by. A spokesperson for the Wellcome Trust, told Nature that the centre will be distinct from another Wellcome-supported project that is in the works, the Francis Crick Institute, previously known as UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI). Though the two organisations won’t be intertwined, there are “bound to be some synergies,” the spokesperson said.

Image of cross-section of Wellcome Trust’s proposed life science centre courtesy of the Wellcome Trust