£73m powerhouse of biomedical research opens at ICL

A major new research facility at Imperial College London officially opened by George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, aims to expand and accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases. The £73 million Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine (ICTEM) combines laboratory space for up to 450 scientists with a dedicated facility for evaluating and developing new medical treatments through clinical trials.

Located on Imperial's Hammersmith Campus, alongside Hammersmith Hospital the upper floors of the building constitute one of the largest cardiovascular research facilities in Europe, including the headquarters of the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial. A focus of research in this unit is to develop stem cell treatments to help the heart repair itself after a heart attack.
The building also houses teams from the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, using genetic sequencing to develop improved methods for preventing, diagnosing and treating common health problems such as heart disease and raised cholesterol.

The building is also home to the Imperial Cancer Research UK Centre, which brings together chemists, biologists and engineers who are working on new ways of tackling cancer, such as molecular imaging techniques that help doctors match treatments to patients and methods to reduce the toxicity of radiotherapy.

The opening of the Centre, built over four years with support from the British Heart Foundation, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust, marks the fruition of the College's largest ever investment in research facilities.