A partnership led by the Medical Research Council (MRC) has awarded the University of Cambridge £25 million to provide cutting–edge equipment and infrastructure for its clinical research, from imaging single disease cells through to improved targeting of treatments for patients.  The awards are part of a major round of funding under the Clinical Research Infrastructure Initiative.

The funding to the University is across three themes.  The first theme will focus on stratified medicine.  This has important implications for more precise targeting of treatment: more refined diagnostic stratification of patients could identify more exactly which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments. The second theme focuses on the use of next generation Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to study dementia, mental health and neuroscience.  The award will allow researchers to procure an ultrahigh-field (7 Tesla) MRI scanner which offers a major step forward in how clearly one can study the brain’s structure, function and chemistry. The third theme will focus on examining diseases at single cell resolution, building on recent developments in technology that have revolutionised our ability to characterise, quantify and isolate single cells. Examination of disease at single cell resolution, both at diagnosis and after treatment, will transform the practice of molecular medicine by improving the quality of patient diagnosis, refining treatment options, monitoring the response to treatment and detecting the emergence of resistance to treatment.

For the full story click here http://www.cam.ac.uk/news/clinical-research-at-university-of-cambridge-receives-major-funding-boost