Annex 1
Submission by the Council for the Central
Laboratories of the Research Councils (CCLRC)
1. The Council for the Central Laboratory
of the Research Councils (CCLRC) owns and operates the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, the Daresbury Laboratory in
Cheshire and the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire. These world-class
institutions support the research community by providing access
to advanced facilities and an extensive scientific and technical
expertise.
2. One such facility is the Synchrotron
Radiation Source (SRS), the UK's brightest source of ultraviolet
light and X-rays, which is based at Daresbury Laboratory and used
for research in materials and life sciences. Industry accesses
the SRS via the DARTS service and there has been significant usage
of the experimental facilities at Daresbury by the pharmaceutical
industry.
3. It is primarily at the fundamental research
stage that the pharmaceutical industry uses the SRS rather than
at the production stage, although the potential to replicate production
processes and monitor reactions in real time is gaining in interest.
The characteristics of the X-rays generated by the synchrotron
mean that problems which are simply intractable in the home laboratory
become routine and researchers are able to collect data more quickly
than would be possible using their own laboratory resources. Typical
experiments include target identification and lead generation
using protein crystallography.
4. Rapid screening of target-lead complexes
is becoming ever more important and developments in robotics at
Daresbury are aiding this. Further down the chain, the identification
and characterisation of drug polymorphs is of utmost importance
when protecting intellectual property and for regulatory approval.
A new treatment developed by Organon for use in anaesthesia was
partially characterised using data from the SRS and it is now
in clinical trials both in the EU and USA. All of the income generated
by this and other industrial activity on the SRS is used for reinvestment
in the facilities of CCLRC to benefit the wider research community.
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