APPENDIX 110
Memorandum from Professor Tony Minson,
Department of Pathology, Cambridge University
The UK needs a National Institute of Medical
Research and it needs to be located on a single site. In my view
any attempt to locate the Institute on more than one site will
create a "virtual institute" that will quickly loose
its identity.
Defining the remit of the Institute is more
difficult. As the MRC task force noted, investment in a new Institute
will take at least a decade and priorities in the future are uncertain.
The remit of the Institute should therefore be basic and translational
medical research and should remain sufficiently broad to respond
to changing priorities.
It is crucial that the Institute has effective
clinical links but I question whether this can be achieved by
association or co-location with a single hospital, because it
is unlikely that any one hospital will provide the necessary range
of specialities. I note, for example, the current focus of NTMR
on infectious disease, neuroscience and development. While there
are hospitals in London with excellent clinical expertise in each
of these areas, no single hospital could provide the patients
or provide high level clinical expertise to cover them all. Doubtless
the emphasis at NTMR will change, but the point is made. It would
be unfortunate if the priorities of a national centre were driven
by the clinical remit of a single hospital. The challenge, then,
is to achieve effective links with multiple clinical centres while
locating the NIMR on a single site. It does not seem to me that
current proposals meet this challenge.
Finally, we cannot ignore the problem of research
with experimental animals. In its current location NIMIR has excellent
accommodation for experimental animals and has the necessary security
arrangements in place. The use of experimental animals will remain
essential to the success of NIMR for the foreseeable future. Any
proposal to re-locate NIMR, regardless of the site, must face
up to the realities and costs of planning, building and running
a large new animal facility. Recent experience in Cambridge and
Oxford suggests that this is a key issue.
16 November 2004
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