UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
Go-ahead for research labs

An £18-million project to build state-of-the-art facilities for the University's Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology is to go ahead. Research in the new laboratories will provide radical approaches to the treatment of stress-related disorders, hormonal and psychiatric disease and Alzheimer's Disease.

The Wellcome Trust has announced an award of over £8 million for the project, and the University has committed a further £10 million from its own resources.

The laboratories will be housed in purpose-built premises adjacent to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Called the Dorothy Hodgkin Building after the University's Nobel Prize-winning fifth Chancellor, the new facilities will occupy the site of the recently demolished Manulife House in Marlborough Street.

The University already has an international reputation in the field of neuroendocrinology, but its scientists are working in cramped conditions and are scattered across a number of buildings that offer no scope for expansion.

The new development will allow research teams to join forces on a single site with the space they need and shared facilities of a high standard.

Stafford Lightman, Professor of Medicine and Director of the University Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology, said: 'The ultimate aim of our work is to provide new understanding and novel treatments for some common and extremely debilitating conditions. We are very much looking forward to hastening progress towards this goal.'

Sir John Kingman, the Vice-Chancellor, said: 'This imaginative funding partnership between the University and the Wellcome Trust will confirm Bristol's position as one of the leading centres for research of this kind. 'The award is a tribute to the expertise and commitment of Stafford Lightman and his colleagues.' Work on the five-storey building is expected to start in June 2001 and should be completed by March 2003.

Back to archive

Email: public-relations@bristol.ac.uk
Copyright: 2001 The University of Bristol, UK
Updated: Thursday, 19-Apr-2001 12:38:35 BST