Stuart Forbes and Kelsey Wallace break ground for the CTR (Image Credit: Douglas Robertson)
Ground was broken for the CTR building by CRM Director Professor Stuart Forbes and Castlebrae High School pupil Kelsey Wallace. Kelsey was CRM’s first summer intern as part of a close collaboration with Castlebrae Community High School which includes a scheme where CRM staff and students mentor Castlebrae pupils.
The CTR will bring together experts from a range of fields to build on existing research expertise in stem cell biology, regenerative medicine, and matrix and inflammation biology to better understand and promote tissue regeneration and repair.
The project builds on the success of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM) which has grown beyond its capacity since it was completed in 2011. CRM Director, Professor Stuart Forbes said: “The CTR will build on Edinburgh’s long history of excellence in regenerative medicine research, which dates back to before Dolly the sheep. Bringing together world-leading experts onto one site, we hope to speed up the delivery of much-needed treatments.”
The Institute for Regeneration and Repair will support a vibrant community of over 600 scientists across the two Centres and clinician scientists at all career stages, with state of the art facilities, training, and support. Professor Forbes added: “The IRR as a whole will use the latest technology to investigate new therapies and treatments for tissue damage in debilitating diseases of the brain, liver, lung, and blood, such as the destruction of nerve cells in multiple sclerosis, or damage to the liver caused by infections.”
The £54m project is partly funded by a £10.7million award from the UK Research Partnership Infrastructure Fund. The CTR will also house the new £10m Chemistry and Computational Biology of the Niche (CCBN) facility which provides space and resources to link cutting-edge chemistry, bioengineering and computational biology with stem cell research and has been funded by the Medical Research Council integrated with the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Hub ‘Engineering and Exploiting the Stem Cell Niche’.
