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£2.5 Million Wolfson Grant Completes WarwickMedical Research Institute

Originally Published 30 January 2001

The University of Warwick has just been awarded £2.5 million pounds from the Wolfson Foundation to support biomedical research at the University. This award effectively completes the University's Medical Research Institute Appeal launched in late 1994. The funds will be used to complete the building and equipping of state-of- the-art facilities which allow scientists from the University of Warwick to work with doctors from the hospitals in Coventry, Birmingham and Warwick to study the mechanisms of disease.

The application for the award was drafted by the Vice-Chancellor Sir Brian Follett, along with the Chairman of the University's Biological Sciences Department Professor Howard Dalton, and neurobiologist Professor Nick Dale. The first phase of the Institute, the Sir Quinton Hazell Medical Research Centre, is already up at running and provides the latest lab facilities for cell and molecular biology for over 60 research staff.

The success of the MRI Appeal has underpinned the development of Bio-Medical research at Warwick, complementing the existing acknowledged strengths of the Department of Biological Sciences in molecular biology. It has also been an important factor in attracting a new Medical School to the University, which is being built next to the Biological Sciences Department. Some of the topics the new research teams will study are diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature birth, neurodegenerative disease, and the origins of genetic disease.

Note for Editors:
The Wolfson Foundation is a charitable foundation set up in 1955 whose aims were stated by the Founder Trustees to be the advancement of health, education, the arts and humanities. These remain the aims of the Trustees today. As a general policy, grants are given to act as a catalyst, to back excellence and talent and to provide for promising future projects which may currently be under funded, particularly for renovation and equipment. There is a continued emphasis on science and technology, research, education, health and the arts. Trustees meet twice a year and are advised by panels comprising Trustees and specialists which meet before the main Board meetings. Priorities include the renovation of historic buildings, libraries, support for preventive medicine, programmes for people with special needs, and education. Grants are made to universities for student accommodation, equipment for research, new buildings and renovations.


Further information about the above press release and all other media services at the University of Warwick can be obtained from:

Peter Dunn, Press Officer
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL
West Midlands
Tel: 024 76 523708
Email: puapjd@warwick.ac.uk