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Britain’s Medical Research Council has notified staff at its Harwell Institute, located near Oxford, that academic work there may end, following the recommendation of an internal strategy board, The Guardian reported yesterday (June 20). The change would mean the closure of the institute’s Mouse Genetics Unit (MGU), which employs 125 researchers and 40 support staff, according to the newspaper.
“We’re perplexed,” MGU director Steve Brown tells The Guardian. “We don’t understand the decision. We need to have a pause to consider the impact on British science.”
According to its website, the Harwell Institute’s research areas include neurodegeneration, deafness, and diabetes. The institute’s Mary Lyon Centre, which provides mouse services to researchers, would not be affected by the proposed closure.
Noting the recent closure of another UK animal facility, that one run by Wellcome Sanger, Brown says in comments to The Guardian that to close both would ...
