Medical Research Council gives £1m to Warwick

Warwick has received over £1m of funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The funding will support research into the mammalian brain, with the aim of taking ground-breaking ideas into industry and out to patients.

Professor Nicholas Dale, of the University’s School of Life Sciences, will lead researchers in investigating the activity of neural cells that help control complex behaviours such as feeding and breathing.

The funding from the Medical Research Council, which comprises a Proximity to Discovery award to Warwick MRC Industry Engagement Fund (WMIEF) of £100k and a Discovery Award of £973k to support vivo microscopy researchers, will accelerate this research allowing new collaborations between researchers and industry to be fostered.

The Warwick researchers’ aim is to record and manipulate the activity of neurons and other brain cells while the animal is behaving freely, in order to determine the link between neural activity and behaviour.

The WMIEF will be able to use the MRC’s funding to showcase Warwick research for opportunities for collaborative projects. They want to establish new industry-led collaborative relationships that would not have been possible without the funding.

Discussing the research, Professor Dale said: “the long-standing aim of neuroscience is to understand, at a fundamental mechanistic level, how the activity of the neurons and other neural cells control behaviour and functional outputs of the nervous system.”

Professor Dale explained: “while this has been achieved in simple organisms, the modern challenge is to understand the far more complex workings of the mammalian brain and ultimately the human brain.”

Professor Sir John Savill, chief executive of the MRC, praised the MRC funding awards for their ability to “help to identify and encourage exciting science, and bring different cultures together to form strong collaborations.”

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