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MRC Units join UCL

1 August 2013

Three Medical Research Council (MRC) Units will transfer to UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences today and become University Units.

President & Provost Professor Sir Malcolm Grant and Professor Sir John Savill, chief executive and deputy chair of the Medical Research Council  

Within the Faculty of Population Health, the MRC Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) will be established as a Research Department within the new Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology. Inclusion of the CTU will build on UCL's ability to deliver innovative trial methodologies and develop new approaches to the evaluation of clinical interventions. Also in Population Health, the MRC Lifelong Health & Ageing Unit joins the Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care as a Research Department, bringing with it a wealth of data from the longest running British birth cohort, the 1946 National Survey of Health & Development (NSHD).

Professor Graham Hart, Dean of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences, welcomed the Units to FPHS. He said: "the MRC CTU will increase UCL's ability to undertake translational research that has real population health impacts, and provides MRC scientists with new opportunities to work with colleagues across the School of Life and Medical Sciences on both clinical and complex health interventions". He added that "the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing has a long and successful collaborative history with UCL researchers. The NSHD has been informing social and health policy for the past 60 years, and as cohort members go into their 70s and 80s it will generate many more exciting insights into the lifecourse and ageing". 

The MRC Cell Biology Unit, already embedded within the Faculty of Life Science's Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, will officially cement its relationship with UCL by becoming a University Unit. The continuing aim of the Cell Biology Unit and LMCB is to provide a molecular understanding of cell behaviour through discovery-based research.

Commenting on the transfer Professor Sir John Tooke, Vice Provost (Health) and Head of the UCL School of Life & Medical Sciences, said: "I warmly welcome the MRC Units to UCL. I am confident that these new alliances will be mutually beneficial, drawing on our considerable complementary strengths to enhance our research activities."


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