The Russell Group of universities, of which Durham is a member, has announced an ambitious new commitment to help build healthier communities.
The 24-strong group of universities has pledged to train, by 2030, 181,000 students with the skills needed to support a modern health and care system – including doctors, nurses, midwives, engineers, social scientists, and technology specialists.
In doing so, they will be looking to remove barriers to help more disadvantaged students access medical and health careers.
In addition, the universities will intensify support for life sciences innovation. By growing the number and scale of spin-out businesses emerging from their research base, they aim to help secure around £5 billion in external investment into new life sciences companies in 2030 – up from £3 billion a year currently.
This will accelerate the development of cutting-edge medicines, treatments and technologies, while attracting highly-skilled jobs and new business investment into communities across the UK.
This landmark commitment will help us go further in training the next generation of clinicians and scientists, lead to more cutting-edge companies being formed, and turn research excellence into better outcomes for patients up and down the country.
Magnitude Biosciences is a specialist contract research organisation based at NETPark, near Durham. It was founded in 2018 by Durham University researchers Dr David Weinkove and Dr Christopher Saunter.
Its team uses tiny Caenorhabditis elegans worms – organisms with neurons, skin, gut, muscles and other tissues similar in genetics to those in humans – to rapidly test the effects of different compounds on ageing, neurodegeneration and overall health.
The advantages of its approach for research into drug discovery are remarkable. Answers that would take months using other types of research model can be produced in as little as seven days, and at a fraction of the cost.
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