Furbishment of the Dorothy Hodgkin Building as an integrated research facility for the University of Bristol Research Centre in Neuroendocrinology. (360G-Wellcome-064678_Z_01_Z)

The University of Bristol Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology and Integrative Neuroscience (URCNIN) consists of 9 research groups with common themes at the interface of neuroendocrinology and neuroscience. The URCNIN has a programme of research which spans basic molecular and cellular biology, through integrative physiology to clinical neuroendocrinology, psychiatry and neurology. This rapidly expanding Centre is housed in scattered laboratories in the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) which are now so cramped that there is only 7.2m2 of bench space per member of scientific staff. Equipment has to be housed in corridors and external huts to allow enough work space for day to day use. Our animal facilities are located half a mile away in the School of Medical Sciences, as are those members of the URCNIN who are based in the Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry. Despite these severe limitations, the scientific output of the members of the URCNIN has been prodigious over the last five years. There is now simply no room either to consolidate our current research groups or to allow for the recruitment of new groups to complement our present activities. Unless we have high quality new accommodation to reinforce the intellectual and technical integration of our research groups, we will not only fail to attract this vital new blood, but we will be in danger of losing our current research teams to other institutions with better infrastructure and facilities. During the summer of 1998 a 7-storey office building, built approximately 40 years ago and adjacent to the BRI, became available. The University recognised that this building provided a strategic opportunity to provide urgently needed accommodation for the URCNIN and purchased the freehold of the building. The strengths of the current application are: (a) the provision of state-of-the-art facilities for the development of our research programmes; (b) an interactive environment in which molecular and cell biologists, physiologists and clinicians can make maximum use of overlapping interests, expertise and technologies; (c) the physical integration of our animal experimental work into the rest of our research programme; (d) our clinical scientists will work in a high class facility within close proximity of their clinical duties, and with easy access to clinical material and clinical investigation facilities; (e) the provision of space for the new research groups recruited to join the URCNIN.