A Translational Research Resource Centre and Image-Based Screening Platform for MRC-LMCB, UCL.

A new centre at UCL will give UK researchers access to an automated microscope system that can rapidly screen thousands of cells to find genes and drug compounds involved in disease. This matters because identifying the genes and proteins that drive disease is a slow, manual process. The proposed platform combines high-throughput automated microscopy with RNA interference—a technique that silences individual genes one at a time—to systematically test which genes are essential for a cellular process or disease pathway. The same equipment can also screen libraries of small molecules, the starting point for new drugs. Similar facilities already exist in Europe and the US, but the UK lacks a dedicated hub of this kind. The centre will serve the MRC and University College London, one of the largest biomedical research clusters in the country. If successful, the platform could accelerate the discovery of drug targets and lead compounds for cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, genetic disorders, infectious diseases, and conditions causing visual failure. The impact is primarily on the research infrastructure itself: it gives scientists a powerful tool they currently lack, speeding up the early stages of drug development that otherwise stall for years.