Uni leads way in research

Science minister David Willetts has announced £8.5 million funding for medical microbial bioinformatic research led by the University of Warwick.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) has made an investment of £32 million across five major awards in order to improve capability, capacity and capital infrastructure in medical bioinformatics.

Professor Mark Pallen, Warwick Medical School, will lead the MRC Consortium for Medical Microbial Bioinformatics (MRC CMMB) which will receive £8.5 million.

The medical bioinformatics initiative will build new ways of linking across complex biological data and health records to solve key medical challenges.

The five major strategic awards aim to strengthen collaborative links, improve tools and infrastructure for researchers and hope to support the safe use of biological and patient data for medical research across all diseases.

The MRC CMMB will be led by Warwick Medical School alongside co-applicants Swansea University, Cardiff University, Public Health Wales NHS Trust and the University of Birmingham.

Universities and science minister Rt Hon David Willets said: ‘’Making the most of large and complex data is a huge priority for government as it has the potential to drive research and development, increase productivity and innovation and ultimately transform lives.’’

The University of Warwick was happy with the investment: ‘’The new Division of Microbiology and Infection [launched April 2013] is the ideal home for this, with the state of the art facilities, academic talent and ambition to make the Consortium a success.’’

Professor Pallen discussed the significance of the development on a global scale.

“We think that this will probably be the largest computational facility dedicated to medical microbial bioinformatics anywhere in the world, which reflects recognition within the UK of the importance of infection on the national and global stage.”