4:26pm Thursday 13th December 2007
A medical research centre in Mill Hill is to close after a £500 million deal was finally struck to build a bigger one in central London.
The deal ends five years of uncertainty around the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) but sparks fears over jobs and the future of the area.
The NIMR has 750 staff, made up of scientists, technical staff and 84 students. It is not yet known if there will be any redundancies.
The centre, which has been based in The Ridgeway since 1950, is a major centre for research on genetics, developmental biology, stem cells and neuroscience, as well as infectious diseases such as bird flu. In 2003, scientists there identified how the Spanish strain of the flu virus mutated from birds to humans.
The NIMR's work will continue at the new UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI), which will be established next to the British Library, near St Pancras International railway station.
The move is supported by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and will receive Government funding.
The new building is expected to be ready by the end of 2013 and will bring together the Medical Research Council (MRC), which owns the NIMR, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and University College London.
The centre will employ around 1,500 researchers and staff to tackle viruses such as flu and HIV, bacterial diseases like meningitis and tuberculosis, as well as cancers, stroke, heart disease and diabetes.
But it is not yet known how many of these will transfer from the NIMR, when the Mill Hill site will close or whether there will be any redundancies.
And residents have raised concerns for the future of the site.
John Turtle, vice president of the Mill Hill Preservation Society, said: "My view is that instead of being in a community in a pleasant area, they are going to be alongside other institutions in King's Cross, in a very urban, anonymous environment.
"And what do you do with the Mill Hill building? A developer might want to see a huge block of flats on that land but the site is Green Belt. It's going to be controversial and everyone in Mill Hill will regret the loss of employment. It will mean a cultural change in the area."
Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University, New York, will lead the centre's scientific planning and a formal process is underway to find architects, designers and engineers to work on the centre.
A statement released by the MRC stated: "The UKCMRI centre will undertake cutting-edge research using the latest technology to advance our understanding of health and disease.
"It will have state-of-the-art scientific facilities and infrastructure and access to teaching and specialist hospitals. Its world-class research will lead to new treatments, which the NHS will be able to trial and adopt."
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