APPENDIX 96
Memorandum from Professor Dame Louise
Johnson, University of Oxford
1. I should like to submit some views in
connection with the proposal to move the National Institute for
Medical Research from its present site at Mill Hill to a site
closer to one of the London Hospitals.
2. While I can see the advantage in promoting
translational research by placing research laboratories close
to clnical sites, the proposed move appears not to take into account
the success of the current research on its present site and is
likely to be a costly disruption.
3. My field of expertise is structural biology
and I can only speak with authority on this area. The laboratories
at NIMR, Mill Hill are doing excellent research in this area with
a special emphasis on signal transduction mechanisms that are
important for understanding cell growth and differentiation with
implications for cancer research. The structural biology programme
also has special relevance to the programmes at Mill Hill on malaria,
tuberculosis, influenza and HIV. There has been splendid interactions
between structural biology and the other Departments and it is
hard to see how these can be sustained if the research laboratories
are to be fragmented.
4. In recent years the NIMR has been rated
first class in the five yearly reviews. Its publication record
(according to an independent survey) placed it among the highest
record in the UK. I hope the results of this survey are available
to the Committee . I should be pleased to forward if needed.
5. In discusions with staff at NIMR I have
been impressed with their unanimous view that their best research
can be done in the present environment at the NIMR Mill Hill site.
This is a view that has my warm support.
23 November 2004
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