THE WELLCOME TRUST THE WELLCOME THE WELLCOME TRUST THE WELLCOME TRUST ANNUAL REVIEW ANNUAL REVIEW ANNUAL 1999/2000 1 October 1999 1 October1999 _ 30 September2000 The Wellcome Trust is an independent research-funding charity, established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936.It is funded from a private endowment, which is managed with long-term stability and growth in mind. Its mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. Its work covers four areas: Knowledge improving our understanding of human and animal biology in health and disease, and of the past and present role of medicine in society. Resources providing exceptional researchers with the infrastructural and career support they need to fulfil their potential. Translation ensuring maximum health benefits are gained from biomedical research. Public engagement raising awareness of the medical, ethical and social implications of biomedical science. CONTENTS Highlights of the year 2 Director’s Introduction 4 Planning for the Future 6 PART 1 MAKING A DIFFERENCE 1999–2000 Knowledge Base 8 Resources 14 Translation 20 Public Engagement 26 PART 2 RESEARCH REPORTS Making faces 32 Tipping the balance 35 Starfish and mousetraps 36 The hidden danger 40 Capping it all 43 Thinking inside the box 44 Why art? 48 The past is before us 50 Birth of a cell 54 Breaking the cycle 57 Cross-talking networks 60 PART 3 A YEAR IN THE TRUST UK Funding 64 Clinical and Careers 66 Centres and Indirectly Managed Major Initiatives 68 International Funding 70 Directly Managed Major Initiatives 73 Medicine, Society and History 74 Catalyst BioMedica Ltd 77 Financial Summary 78 The Board of Governors and Executive Board 80 Advisory Committees 81 Highlights of the year KNOWLEDGE BASE RESOURCES Genomics Infrastructure The first draft of the human genome is The Trust awards £124 million and £71.8 million completed by the Wellcome Trust Sanger in the second and third rounds of the Joint Centre and international partners, and the Infrastructure Fund, a £750 million partnership achievement announced to all at the between the UK Government and the Wellcome Wellcome Trust on 26 June 2000. Trust to inject much-needed funds into the UK Sequencing of the Salmonella typhi (typhoid) university research infrastructure. and Yersinia pestis (plague) genomes is also The Trust pledges £225 million to the £1 billion completed at the Sanger Centre. Science Research Investment Fund, established by the UK Government in 2000. Post-genomics Data released by the SNP Consortium – a £30 Careers million collaboration between the Trust and a Seven new four-year PhD Training Programmes number of pharmaceutical and technological are awarded to universities in December 1999, companies – are used to create a high- bringing the number of programmes to 12. resolution map of genetic markers. The Wellcome Trust publishes the results of two The Trust invests in a new microarray facility at surveys of past and present Trust-funded PhD the Sanger Centre, in partnership with the students in March 2000. Imperial Cancer Research Fund. The Trust publishes the results of an investigation The Trust begins planning a major new initiative into grant application behaviour to examine why in functional genomics, Integrated Thematic fewer women than men apply for grants. Programmes, which aims to bring together Centres research groups from different disciplines to The Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research address a single biological question. Campaign Institute of Cancer and International Developmental Biology in Cambridge and the Seven awards totalling £12 million are made Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research to trilateral research collaborations in the first at the University of Manchester are reviewed round of the Wellcome Trust–Burroughs and their core funding is renewed. Wellcome Fund Infectious Diseases Initiative. International A second competition is launched in 2000. The Trust’s international units in Kenya and History of medicine South-East Asia receive site visits and are The Trust publishes a survey appraising the awarded funding for another five years. development of history of medicine in the The Wellcome Trust Centres for Research UK over the last 30 years. in Clinical Tropical Medicine in the UK are The Academic Unit – formerly part of the also renewed. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine History of medicine – is transferred to University College London The Wellcome Trust’s History of Medicine (UCL) and becomes the Wellcome Trust Library celebrates its 50th anniversary in Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. December 1999. Professor Hal Cook from the University of The History of Medicine Library joins with the Wisconsin at Madison, USA, is recruited as Information Service and the Medical Director of the Centre at UCL in June 2000. Photographic and Film and Video Libraries to Medicine in society form the Wellcome Library for the History and The Trust’s Biomedical Ethics Programme calls Understanding of Medicine. for proposals for research into the ethical, legal The Trust adds a Senior Research Fellowship and social implications of pharmaco- scheme to its History of Medicine Programme genetics and biological sample collections. and makes two awards. 2 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT Company history Surveys and consultations Glaxo Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) Science and the Public, a nationwide survey of donates the company records of the pharma- public attitudes to science sponsored by the ceutical company, the Wellcome Foundation Ltd, Wellcome Trust and the Office of Science and to the Trust, bringing all the personal and Technology, is published. business archives of Sir Henry Wellcome and The Wellcome Trust and Medical Research his partner, Silas Mainville Burroughs, together Council commission research to discover the under one roof. public’s views on the proposed UK Population Professor Roy Church and Dr Tilli Tansey Biomedical Collection. unearth the account book of Burroughs Wellcome & Co., documenting its financial Science Centres activity between 1880 and 1940. Five of the eight Science Centres, to which the Trust has contributed £45 million, open TRANSLATION in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol and Dundee. Dissemination The Wellcome Wing of the Science Museum is The Trust awards £8 million to a collaboration opened by the Queen on 27 June 2000. between the Sanger Centre and European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI – part of the Art and drama European Molecular Biology Laboratory) to A total of £200 000 is awarded to 11 innovative develop Ensembl, an annotated view of science–art partnerships in the 2000 sciart the human genome. competition. The Trust’s Tropical Medicine Resource launches Three Trust-sponsored plays perform at the four new CD-ROMs in its ‘Topics in Edinburgh Fringe Festival: The Idiot, Learning to International Health’ series of multimedia Love the Grey, and Safe Delivery. teaching materials. A new Science on Stage and Screen compe- Exploitation tition – seeking to engage the public’s interest Six awards are made by the Catalyst BioMedica in biomedical science or health through the Development Fund, set up to facilitate the use of drama, film/video and multimedia – exploitation of Trust-funded research. is approved. Clinical research Schools The Trust holds a workshop to encourage The Trust commissions the Institute of debate on research issues in complementary Education to investigate how teachers approach and alternative medicine, and presents a report the social, legal and ethical implications of on the workshop to the House of Lords Select science in the classroom. Committee on Science and Technology. Seventy-seven PhD students spend four days International working alongside teachers and pupils in schools The Trust funds an international meeting in as part of the Researchers in Residence scheme. Liverpool to discuss the implementation of Two new issues of the LabNotes series – ‘Down Lapdap, a new antimalarial drug developed at at the Pharm’ and ‘Beyond the Genome’ – its Kenyan unit. are published. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR 3 Director’s introduction The future within fully committed to such principles, as More than ten years ago, I discussed with my enshrined in the Bermuda agreement of 1996, colleagues the logistics and philosophy of a and the Trust’s grant of £8 million to the huge new undertaking, the Human Genome Ensembl website will help the development Project. For the logistics, our feeling then was of this free-access Internet ‘gateway’ to that the project was entirely feasible and the genome. would bring enormous benefits in the future The UK is fortunate to have so many talented should it succeed. But perhaps more inter- and innovative scientists, and it is essential that esting were the philosophical discussions we back them with the high-quality resources about how the human genome would change and facilities they deserve.Through the Joint our views of science and of what it means to Infrastructure Fund (JIF) – a partnership be human. It brings to mind a comment by the between the Trust and the UK Government – French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau: we have been working to address the infra- “What is a scientist after all? It is a curious structure problems that had become apparent man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of in the UK universities.We have now nature, trying to know what’s going on”. Once completed all the funding rounds of the JIF, and the human genome is completed, the curious the Trust has committed £300 million to 56 geneticist will have stopped looking through awards that will provide new buildings and the keyhole and will have stepped through the equipment for researchers all over the door to gaze upon human inheritance. country.The awards of the first year of the The announcement in June 2000 that the Fund are already bearing fruit, with new milestone of the first draft of the human equipment installed and construction genome sequence had been reached was – continuing apace.