APPENDIX 53
Memorandum from Professor Peter Weissberg,
Cambridge University
I would like to offer my opinion on the future
of this Institution. It is my strong conviction that medical and
medically related research is best undertaken on a biomedical
campus where basic and clinical scientists, and indeed service-orientated
clinicians, can interact. Whilst not wishing to denigrate the
excellent work that has taken place in the past in the NIMR, or
to deny that researchers in the NIMR have forged very successful
clinical collaborations, it is my perception that clinical scientists
working in NIMR become dissociated from the clinical context of
their research. I know of at least one example of a very bright
and promising young clinician who undertook a period of research
training at the NIMR where his research subject was so far removed
from clinical medicine that it offered him little advantage in
pursuing a career in academic clinical research.
It is my personal conviction that translation
of basic biological research into clinical advantage can best
be achieved when all involved are on a single campus. For this
reason it is my view that the long term interests of research
at the NIMR would be best served by relocation to an alternative
campus.
22 November 2004
|
