MEDICAL RESEARCH

The Francis Crick Institute

In 2007 it was announced that the National Medical Science Centre was going to be built between the British Library and St Pancras Station. The facility was due to open 2013. 1500 researchers and support staff would work there.

The London Institute of Medical Sciences is usually referred to as The Crick in reference to Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of D.N.A..

Location: 1 Midland Road, NW1 1AT (blue, purple)

Website: www.crick.ac.uk

The National Institute for Medical Research

The National Institute for Medical Research was set up in 1913 by the Medical Research Committee in Hampstead. In 1950 the Institute relocated to Mill Hill.

In 1946 Philip d Arcy Hart (d.2006) was appointed as the Director of the Medical Research Council's Tuberculosis Unit. He played a leading role in pioneering the use of statistics in medicine and proved that coal miners pneumoconiosis was an industrial disease. In 1965 he formally retired . At the age of 102 he was still working at the Council's Mill Hill facility as an attached worker and published his final academic paper two years later.

In 2015 the Institute was absorbed in The Crick Institute.

Location: The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, NW7 1AA

See Also: THE GAIA GUY

Website: wwwnimr.ac.uk

Medical Research Council

The Medical Research Committee was created as part of the National Insurance Act of 1913. From the start research was focussed upon a broad range of area: rickets, T.B., and hygiene in milk.

Website: www.sciencecouncil.org/employer-cs/medical-research-council www.ukri.org/council/mrc

Clinical Research Committee

Cholesterol

In 1973, while working at the MRC's Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park, the biochemist Bill Richmond (1941-2010) devised the Richmond cholesterol level test. Previously, assessment had involved working with dangerous chemicals such as hydrochloric acid.

The London Institute of Medical Sciences

Location: Du Cane Road, W12 0NN

Website: https://lms.mrc.ac.uk

Social Medicine Unit

In 1948 the Medical Research Council set up its Social Medicine Unit.

In the post-war era a number of studies were published that created a new approach to public health: (Jeremy) Jerry Morris (1910-2009) the Director of the Unit established a link between heart disease and the failure to exercise ; Richard Doll (1912-2005) and Austin Bradford Hill (1897-1991) proved that there was a link between smoking and lung cancer.

Location: Central Middlesex Hospital, Acton Lane, NW10 7NS

Randomised Controlled Trials

Randomised Controlled Trials (R.C.T.s) were devised by the Medical Research Council. The first one was conducted in 1948 at the Brompton Hospital on streptomycin, an American-produced drug for treating T.B. patients. It was appreciated that the most effective way of assessing the pharmaceutical's worth was not just to give it to people who had the disease. Randomisation removed the bias. The methodology was devised by the statistician Austin Bradcliffe Hill. 107 patients were involved. It was concluded that streptomycin was not an effective treatment for the condition. The exercise marked the switch from an opinion-based approach to an evidence-based one.

Subsequently, it was appreciated that T.B. needed multi-drug treatment. Resistance had developed to the streptomycin when it had been used in isolation.

Location: The Royal Brompton Hospital, 1 Manresa Road, SW3 6LR (purple, turquoise)

Archie Cochrane

Archie Cochrane studied medicine at University College Hospital. He spent most of his working life in South Wales. He became the great-grandfather of evidence-based medicine.

Location: The Cruciform Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6AU (purple, turquoise)

The Wellcome Trust

In 1965 Peter Williams was appointed to be the first director of the Wellcome Trust, having previously worked for the Medical Research Council. He was a trained physician who had appreciated that his gift was for administration. At the time, Lord Franks, the chairman of the trustees, was of the opinion that medical research in the UK was adequately covered by the Council and disease-focused charities. Williams successfully argued that there was scope for funding areas that were begin to change, areas such as genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience. He brought in active medical and scientific researchers to engage with possible grant applicants.

The research that was stimulated by Williams's approach to research prompted the trustees to diversify the trust's investments. In 1986 its chairman, the industrialist Sir David Steel, and Sir Rogers Gibbs oversaw the sale of shares in the Wellcome Foundation.

In 1991 Williams retired as the Trust's director.

In 1993 the Trust financed the building and staffing of the Sanger research campus at Hinxton in Cambridgeshire to sequence the human genome.

Location: 215 Euston Road, NW1 2BE (red, blue)

Website: https://wellcome.org

David Backhouse 2024