MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit

MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit

The Wellcome Trust/MRC building, housing the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit
Abbreviation MBU
Formation 1927
Type Research institute
Legal status Government agency
Purpose Mitochondrial research
Headquarters The Wellcome Trust/MRC building
Location
Director
Professor Massimo Zeviani
Parent organization
Medical Research Council
Website MBU

The MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit (formerly the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit) is an institution of the Medical Research Council based at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital / Cambridge Biomedical Campus site in Cambridge, England. The unit is a University of Cambridge partner institution concerned with the study of the mitochondrion, as this organelle has a varied and critical role in many aspects of eukaryotic metabolism and is implicated in a large number of metabolic, degenerative, and age-related human diseases.

History

The Unit was originally founded in 1927 using a donation from Sir William Dunn, who left £1 million to charity on his death in 1912. Part of this money was used to fund what was then called the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory, with its research supported by the MRC. The Unit was renamed in 2009 to the Mitochondrial Biology Unit under the directorship of Professor Sir John Walker to reflect its expertise in mitochondrial research. The current director of the Unit is Professor Massimo Zeviani.[1]

The Unit has three major scientific aims:[2]

  1. To understand the fundamental processes taking place in mitochondria
  2. To understand the involvement of these processes in human diseases
  3. To exploit knowledge of these fundamental processes for the development of new therapies to treat human diseases

Research Groups

The MBU is organised into eight independent research groups[3] and includes 30-40 graduate students who are members of the University of Cambridge:

Resources

The MBU is the home of several freely-accessible scientific web-resources:

MitoMiner - a mitochondrial proteomics database that provides information on cellular localisation, function and species & tissue specific expression

The Integrated Mitochondrial Protein Index (IMPI) - a list of all the genes and proteins that make up the mammalian mitochondrion

Directors

Professor Massimo Zeviani (2013 - )

Professor Sir John Walker (1998 - 2013)[1][4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Directorship of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit
  2. Introduction
  3. Research Groups Page
  4. Curriculum-Vitae

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, August 28, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.