NEUROTRAIN ::: PROFILE ::: LONDON
HOST ORGANISATION IV & V
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON & KING’S COLLEGE LONDON, LONDON, UK
The Research Team at UCL and the Research Team at King’s College in London consists of 3 senior scientists:
- Prof. Shomi S. BHATTACHARYA
- [SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR, Professor
of Experimental Ophthalmology and Head Department of Molecular Genetics; Institute
of Ophthalmology, University College]
- Prof. Nicolas WOOD
- [Professor of Neurology and Neurogenetics, Department of
Molecular Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, University College London]
- Prof. Stephen L. MINGER
- [Director Stem Cell Biology Laboratory, Wolfson Centre
for Age Related Diseases, King’s College London]
University College London. UCL is one of the foremost teaching and research institutions in the United Kingdom with over 16,300 students, of whom approximately one third are graduate students. There are more than 3,800 academic and research staff in 72 departments within the College in the following eight faculties: Arts and Humanities, Social and Historical Sciences, Laws, the Built Environment, Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Clinical Sciences. UCL is proud of its record of academic distinction; it can count 10 Nobel Prize winners among former academic staff and students, and the current academic staff includes 35 Fellows of the Royal Society, 13 of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 19 of the British Academy. All graduate students at UCL are members of the Graduate School, which provides a structure to support graduate students and connects UCL’s wide range of disciplines, facilitating new programmes and interdisciplinary collaboration. As well as UCL’s own library of over 1.5 million volumes, students are close to the University of London Library and the British Library. All departments and Institutes of UCL have a regular series of journal clubs and scientific seminars and the graduate students are encouraged to participate and present their data. Skills development include presentation skills; statistics for researchers; quantitative and qualitative research methods; and general transferable skills in areas such as research management and organisational and communication skills. A Research Training Logbook is provided for all new graduate students.
The Institute of Neurology was established in 1950 and has retained and developed its close links with the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Queen Square, and provides teaching and research of the highest quality in neurology and the neurosciences, and professional training for clinical careers in neurology, neurosurgery, neuropsychiatry, neuroradiology, neuropathology and clinical neurophysiology. With its concentration of clinical and applied scientific activity it constitutes a unique national resource for postgraduate training and research in neurology, its associated disciplines and the basic neurosciences. A total of around 355 staff are employed in some 11,500sq m of laboratory and office space in five buildings. The Institute has a current annual turnover of £24.9m. The Institute was awarded a grade 5A*. In recognition of sustained excellence this has been upgraded to 6* a measure of its national and international standing.
The Institute of Ophthalmology is Britain’s leading eye research centre and achieved a 5* A rating in the last research assessment exercise. The institute is housed in approximately 7,000 sq m of laboratory space, employs over 200 research staff and has an annual financial spend of £11M. Cooperation with other sections and departments within UCL and with Moorfields Eye Hospital makes it the largest site for eye and vision research in the world. The institute has brought together research teams employing techniques in cell and molecular biology, immunology, molecular genetics, pathogenesis, visual neurobiology, developmental biology, visual psychophysics, experimental therapeutics and epidemiology. Genetic linkage and mutation detection had been successfully used to identify the genes that are responsible for a number of eye diseases. Animal models of human diseases are an invaluable tool for the study and potential treatment of human retinal degenerations. Many of the protein components of visual transduction are now known and studies are in progress to understand the properties and interactions of these proteins, together with the effect of known mutations involved in degenerative eye disorders.
King's academics pursue and achieve excellence in a wide range of research activities and scholarship. In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, twenty four subject areas were rated 5 or 5*, the highest ratings achievable. King's earned over £99 million in external research grants and contracts in the financial year 2003-2004. Comparative national statistics are published well after the end of the financial year, but in the previous financial year King's was the sixth highest earner among British Universities for research income. The GKT School of Biomedical Sciences is one of the largest Schools within King’s College London. It currently has 110 academic staff, 300 research and support staff, 200 postgraduate students and it teaches approximately 1500 undergraduate students on a range of biomedical, medical, dental and other health-related programmes. The School is mainly based at the Guy’s Campus at London Bridge and benefits from its interactions with, and its physical proximity to, the world-renowned hospital of Guy’s and St. Thomas’. The richness of the research environment is enhanced by this clinical setting. Within the School, research is organised in intellectually and physically coherent research divisions, with teaching delivered from discipline-based teaching departments. Details of the research interests and teaching programmes within the School can be found above. The facilities for teaching and research at the Guy’s Campus have been greatly enhanced over the last five years with a capital investment programme totalling some £100 million. This has provided two new buildings with state-of-the-art laboratory facilities. In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the School achieved a strong set of results, with ratings of 5* in Anatomy (UoA 6), 5 in Pre- Clinical studies (UoA 5), 5 in Biological Sciences (UoA14) and 4 in other studies and Professions Allied to Medicine (UoA 11).
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