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£500m superlab aims to lead fight against cancer
Mark Prigg, Science and Technology Editor8 Dec 2009
Plans for a £500 million “superlab” to help beat cancer have been unveiled.
The research facility will cover 3.6 acres near the British Library in King's Cross and house 1,500 scientists. Scheduled to open in 2014, it will study the basic biology that causes the formation and spread of cancer and other diseases such as malaria.
The lab is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, University College London and the Wellcome Trust.
Project bosses today revealed the final design for the building — to be named the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation — by architects HOK, and outlined its research plans.
Professor Sir Paul Nurse, chairman of scientific planning at the centre, said: “UKCMRI will be the most exciting project for UK biomedical research in the next 50 years. Its ambition is immense and the promise of what can be achieved will excite and energise the global scientific community.”
Professor Nurse hopes the lab will make London the world's leading cancer research centre. “The ingenuity and excellence of scientists gathered in London has been extraordinary and UKCMRI will draw on that tradition,” he said.
Harpal Kumar of Cancer Research UK added: “[It] will be one of the most important medical research projects anywhere in the world over the next 20 years.”
The plans have angered some neighbouring residents, who have set up a Facebook group.
“Campaigners who have visited the site have been shocked at its proximity to people's homes,” the group said in letter to a local paper. “Foot and mouth disease was leaked from an equally professional and stringent facility at Pirbright in Surrey.”
The planning application will be submitted next spring. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2011.
Reader views (1)
Why bother with R&D for cancer treatment. NICE will just decree that any new treatment from this research facility is "too expensive" for NHS patients.
By the way, what is the cost of running NICE?
- Patricia, LONDON, 07/12/2009 12:45
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