A consortium of researchers from the medical schools at University College Dublin, Trinity College, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and their affiliated teaching hospitals has been successful in their bid for a major Clinical Research Centre (CRC) in Dublin. Anticipated to be operational by 2009, the CRC will provide the infrastructure to support patient-focused research studies within a hospital setting, concentrating on areas such as cancer, neuro-psychiatric diseases and infectious diseases.
The bid to the Wellcome Trust /Health Research Board was led by Professor Dermot Kelleher of TCD and St James’s Hospital, and co-ordinated through the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre - an existing collaborative research partnership between TCD, UCD and RCSI.
The proposal will comprise two major components; a new clinical research centre at St James’ Hospital in Dublin, and a network of Clinical Research Facilities linking it to existing centres at Beaumont Hospital, St Vincent’s University Hospital and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital.
The funding comes from a larger €108 million programme run by the Wellcome Trust in partnership with local funding authorities to improve clinical research infrastructure in the UK and Ireland, and Ireland’s share over the next five years will be €20 million. The Wellcome Trust will fund around €10 million for building the new centre in Dublin while the HRB will provide another €10 million for operational costs.
The members of the international scientific advisory committee described the Irish proposal, which focuses on translating scientific discoveries into state-of-the-art therapies, as outstanding, saying that it was one of the best applications and should be supported as a priority.
