Living systems building

The University of Exeter has announced plans to develop a £20 million research centre, dedicated to developing new strategies for diagnosing and treating diseases.

The centre's research will bring a new approach to understanding how diseases operate in the human body by applying engineering principles to living cells, focusing on a number of thematic areas:

• Biomarker discovery
• Next generation bio-imaging technology
• Synthetic biology
• Systems biomedicine
• Biomedical physics

Located on the University’s Streatham Campus and with building work planned to commence in 2012, the centre will bring together leading mathematicians, physicists, systems engineers, biochemists, cell and molecular biologists and clinical scientists. The centre will be funded through the University of Exeter’s £230 million investment in science, medicine and engineering across five themes that include Systems Biology and Translational Medicine. This radical new approach to biosciences brings together techniques from mathematics and physics to understand subcellular processes, individual organisms and entire ecosystems.

As the first dedicated science building to be developed on the campus since 1968, the centre will have space for up to 200 scientists and technicians, ranging from postgraduate students to professors. Its working spaces will include a large open-plan laboratory and dedicated engineering space for large-scale experimental research.