Key elements: Investment in early stage medical research + Knowledge exchange through access to industry facilities

Long-term partner AstraZeneca commit to fund fundamental research

This important collaboration aligns with our strategic objective of reaching out and supporting the best science, wherever it exists around the world. We are excited to be collaborating with scientists from Imperial College to help translate innovative science into novel technologies or medicines."

Menelas Pangalos

Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca’s IMED Biotech Unit

Imperial College London is partnering with AstraZeneca to lay the foundations for new medical breakthroughs and publications in leading journals.

The collaboration will see the College foster closer links with industry, with researchers from multiple faculties working with AstraZeneca scientists to explore new avenues of fundamental research.

As part of the partnership, the pharmaceutical firm will provide investment over a five-year period through the AstraZeneca-Imperial College Innovation Fund to support early-stage research across a number of areas, including treatments for cancer, coughs and infertility.

Five projects will be supported through the newly established fund, with a sixth project to be funded by Imperial's MRC Confidence in Concept award, which aims to fast-track promising research from the laboratory to the clinic.

Imperial academics involved in the first round of the project - funded for up to 12 months - have been confirmed as Dr Chris Dunsby from the Department of Physics, Dr Nadia Guerra from the Department of Life Sciences, Dr Sadaf Ghaem-Maghami from the Department of Surgery & Cancer, Dr Channa Jayasena from the Department of Medicine, and Professor Maria Belvisi and Dr Charlotte Dodson of the National Heart and Lung Institute.

Over the next five years, these researchers will work with AstraZeneca scientists to explore a range of areas which could ultimately lead to benefits for patients, aiming to publish their findings in high-impact journals.

You can read the full news article here.

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