Scientific and Medical Research: case study
In June 2005 Trustees awarded £3 million toward a major new research building for Oxford's Department of Biochemistry. This elegant building, which opened in 2008, provides state-of-the-art facilities for diverse, high-quality research cutting across a number of disciplines. The Wolfson grant was specifically allocated to the Institute of Chromosome Biology and a separate award (of £1.5 million) supported the Structural Bio-Informatics Unit housed in the building.
The Head of Department, Professor Kim Nasmyth, was recruited from Austria partially with the help of a Wolfson Merit Award. "The new building", he writes, "is bringing together a community of scientists many of whom previously only met each other in seminars and meetings."
The project is an example of Wolfson funding in this area - the support of international quality scientific/ medical research through the provision of infrastructure.
