110m into post-genomic research

LONDON The UK government has allocated £110 million over three years to a new multi-research council genomics project to develop our understanding of the role of genes, their interactions and the gene products. "There are clearly huge potential medical benefits," said the UK science minister, Lord Sainsbury. "The benefits are already arriving in diagnosis and drug design, and we are going to see major impacts, for example, from medical treatments genetically tuned to individual patients."Today the UK research councils have, in fact, picked up £252 million over three years in extra cross-council funds, to be spent in genomics, 'e-science' and basic technology. These special programmes are themselves part of a total three-year increase of £725m, announced as a total in the Treasury's summer spending review but only allocated to specific programmes and councils today.For example, we now learn that the Medical Research Council (MRC) will receive an increase of £53 million from the genomics project, and £89 million overall. This is on a total three-year budget of around £1000 million, so around 9%. The Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BBSRC) receives £33 million from the genomics package, but £67 million overall, on a three-year baseline of around £630 million, that is, around 11%. The rest of the genomics booty will be spread between the NERC (environment) EPSRC (engineering and physics) and the ESRC (economics and social research).In one of the most striking genomics projects, within its genomics grant the Medical Research Council will invest £20m to create a 500,000-person 'UK Population Biomedical Collection' in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and the UK Departments of Health. This will involve collecting blood samples and lifestyle information from 1% of the British population — if that number volunteers — and tracking this against the volunteers' medical records for a period of at least a decade. But the project is still under development, and further details are to be announced in the New Year.According to Lord Sainsbury the project "raises issues in confidentiality which we'll need to get right. But the MRC has made an initial public consultation, the Wellcome Trust is coming in, and we've set up links between the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government, the Director of Research Councils and the Department of Health so we get a coordinated government response. The main thing is the 500,000 will be volunteers. The problems Iceland faced with a similar project were that people had to opt out, whereas here you will opt in."Professor Sir George Radda, Chief Executive of the MRC, said "the Collection promises to be one of the most exciting scientific initiatives of recent times. It could deliver benefits for the health of many generations to come."Another key MRC genomics activity, not flagged in its press material, will be to establish a new mouse facility in a £15 million investment at Harwell in Oxfordshire, under the directorship of Professor Steve Brown. This facility will create mouse models of diseases and provide the mice as a service to universities and research centres. But according to the MRC today the unit is still in the planning stage and the numbers of mice to be made available is not yet known.The BBSRC last year established seven major consortia for genomics research under its £19 million initiative 'Investigating Gene Function'. These consortia are addressing Arabidopsis, Brassicas, cereals, Drosophila, farm and veterinary animals, Streptomyces, and yeasts and fungal pathogens. Professor Ray Baker, Chief Executive of BBSRC, said that the new funding for genomics research "recognises and strengthens the marriage between biological and medical science." Despite the new genomics money, the BBSRC said it will "continue to give high priority to funding across its portfolio by 'responsive mode' — that is, in response to grant applications from scientists in universities and research institutes, rather than in directive projects."The Economic and Social Research Council will get £5 million over three years to research some more political issues surrounding genomics. But will the genomics project look at the vexed issue of the patenting and ownership of genetic material? Lord Sainsbury implied that it would not do so directly "Well there was the Blair–Clinton statement, that you cannot patent discoveries but only inventions of known utility, but the issue is that that is a grey line, and we want to make sure the line is held at a proper place. It's up to the Patent Office but if there were more research on these matters it would be helpful. If the line is not drawn at the right place, there will be legal action. The ESRC will look at risks, at public consultation, at insurance, and genetic testing questions. Everyone's agreed that many of these developments raise ethical and social issues, so it is important there is a great deal of research to ensure these things are properly handled."As for media coverage, "we and at least some of the media are concerned that there should be a well-informed public debate. We want to ensure that the press are able to get well-informed stories, and that the whole process is transparent" said the Minister.

110m into post-genomic research

500,000 people will help research councils to solve post-genomic puzzles.

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of