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Imperial healthcare technologies of the future boosted by new DTI fund
November 20, 2002Two new technologies with the potential to transform healthcare have won scientists at Imperial College London almost a third of a new UKP 8 million research programme funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), it is announced today.
The Beacon research programme, part of a DTI initiative to provide a platform for UK world-class research in the areas of bioinformatics, bio-imaging and nanotechnology, will focus on developing technologies that will provide novel healthcare solutions.
Paul French, Professor of Physics, will lead a team with members from every faculty of Imperial to develop fluorescence lifetime imaging technology.
"Fluorescence lifetime imaging provides an enormous opportunity to reveal mechanisms underlying the fundamental biology of disease and to provide new clinical diagnostic tools. This has become possible because of advances in ultrafast laser and imaging technology," said Professor French.
"Our Beacon award provides a unique opportunity to develop an integrated interdisciplinary approach to develop immensely exciting instrumentation for molecular biology, medicine and drug discovery."
The project will also provide a novel way of investigating the trafficking and communication between proteins in the body.
Imperial's second award winner, Stephen Muggleton, Professor of Bioinformatics in the Department of Computing will lead a team in developing computer technology to fine-tune therapeutic drug design. Using expertise from biological science, medicine and computing the team will develop an industrial-strength computing tool that will allow the modelling of disease pathways and predict the toxicity of potential drugs. This tool will assist in the search for effective drugs and reduce the expense in their development.
"Research and development in the pharmaceutical industry involves laboratories of chemists synthesising and testing hundreds of compounds often at great expense. It is now possible to construct 'rules' that predict whether drugs will work from examples of drugs with known medicinal activity," said Professor Muggleton.
"During the 21st century, it is already clear that computers will play an increasingly central role in supporting the fundamental formulation and testing of scientific hypotheses," he added.
Both Imperial projects will harness the strong interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial culture at Imperial to help develop new drugs and deliver improved detection and treatment of disease.
Imperial scientists will join representatives from the four other Beacon projects and Science and Innovation Minister, Lord Sainsbury, in celebrating the research programme launch at the Globe Theatre, London on 20 November 2002.
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Imperial College, University of London
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