Medical Research Council

What is it famous for? While being the main UK government's agency for funding biomedical research, it is probably best known for having nurtured British molecular biology in Cambridge in the golden decade of the 1950s — whence came the double helix model of DNA (James Watson and Francis Crick), the first amino-acid sequence of a protein (insulin, Fred Sanger), and the first three-dimensional protein structures What has it done since? It continues to be the main source of public funding for biomedical sciences in the UK, distributing around £ 300 million a year to grant holders and staff in universities, to about 500 graduate students a year, and to over 3 500 staff in over 40 MRC establishments. However, financial pressures last year forced the MRC to reject 70 % of its alpha-rated grant applications and to warn of the damaging impact of this level of rejection. Where is it? The other big UK research councils have moved their head offices from London to save costs but not the MRC: it still occupies a grand building in the heart of London, half way between Madame Tussauds waxworks and the BBC. Its major research establishments are the National Institute for Medical Research in north London (£25 million), the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (£13.5 million) and the Clinical Sciences Centre in west London (£ 11 million). Who runs it? The UK government hands over the money, but how it is spent is decided by the MRC itself. Overall policy is in the hands of the 17 council members, who are mainly eminent medics. The current Chief Executive is a Welsh chemist turned cell biologist, Sir David (Dai) Rees, who hands over to a Hungarian chemist turned biochemist, Professor György (George) Radda, in October. Radda left Hungary to take a chemistry degree at Oxford University in 1960. He has remained there ever since, working largely on the development of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and its application to metabolic diseases, and now holds the title of Professor of Molecular Cardiology. What is its biggest success? Historically, and arguably still, the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. The five scientists named in the first paragraph each received a Nobel prize, and three more have since been notched up by the laboratory's staff: Cesar Milstein (monoclonal antibodies), Aaron Klug (structural studies), and a second to Fred Sanger (DNA sequencing). What is its biggest failure? Probably the …