The MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit (formerly the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit) is a department of the
School of Clinical Medicine at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
, funded through a strategic partnership between the
Medical Research Council and the University. It is located at the
Addenbrooke’s Hospital
Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned large teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Camp ...
/
Cambridge Biomedical Campus
The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe. The site is located at the southern end of Hills Road in Cambridge, England.
Over 20,000 people work at the site, which is home to Cambridge ...
site in
Cambridge, England
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...
. The unit is concerned with the study of the
mitochondrion, as this organelle has a varied and critical role in many aspects of
eukaryotic
Eukaryotes () are organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the ...
metabolism and is implicated in many metabolic, degenerative, and age-related human diseases.
History
The Unit was founded in 1927 using a donation from
Sir William Dunn
Sir William Dunn, 1st Baronet, (22 September 1833 – 31 March 1912), was a London banker, merchant and philanthropist, Liberal Member of Parliament for Paisley (1891–1906), and from before 1896 until the outbreak of the Second Boer War in ...
, who left £1 million to charity on his death in 1912. Part of this money was used to fund what was then called the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory, with its research supported by the
Medical Research Council (MRC). Its original research focus was to investigate the role of vitamins in human health. Under the directorship of Egon Kodicek this focus changed to more general nutritional research. The Unit was restructured in 1998 under the directorship of
Professor Sir John Walker to focus on mitochondrial research. The Unit was renamed in 2009 to the Mitochondrial Biology Unit to reflect its mitochondrial expertise. In March 2017 the Unit was transferred from the MRC to the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
. The current director of the Unit is
Professor Judy Hirst.
The Unit has three major scientific aims:
# To understand the fundamental processes taking place in mitochondria
# To understand the involvement of these processes in human diseases
# To exploit knowledge of these fundamental processes for the development of new therapies to treat human diseases
Research Groups
The MBU is organised into nine independent research groups
and includes 30-40 graduate students who are members of the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
:
* Professor
Judy Hirst
Judy Hirst is a British scientist specialising in mitochondrial biology. She is Director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge.
Education and early life
Hirst grew up in Lepton, a village near Huddersfield, West ...
FRS - Understanding the molecular mechanism of complex I and its roles in human disease
* Professor
Patrick Chinnery - Mitochondrial genomics and human diseases
* Professor Edmund Kunji - Understanding transport processes in mitochondria
* Dr Michal Minczuk - Discovering the genetic links between mitochondrial dysfunction and human disease
* Professor Mike Murphy - Targeting therapeutic and probe molecules to mitochondria, mitochondrial radical production and redox signalling
* Dr Julien Prudent - Interactions between mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum in cell physiology and disease
* Dr Jelle van den Ameele - Molecular mechanisms of tissue specificity in mitochondrial disease
* Dr Alex Whitworth - Genetic models of neurodegenerative disease
* Professor
John E. Walker
Sir John Ernest Walker One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 7 January 1941) is a British chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. Walker is Emeritus Director an ...
FRS - Understanding the molecular mechanism of how ATP is made
Directors
Professor Judy Hirst FRS (2020 - )
(2013 - 2019)
Professor Sir John Walker FRS (1998 - 2013)
(1973 – 1998)
Dr Egon Kodicek CBE FRS (1963 - 1973)
Dr Leslie Harris (1929 - 1963)
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1927 - 1929)
See also
*
Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry - another beneficiary of Dunn's will
References
External links
*
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Biological research institutes in the United Kingdom
Nutrition
Medical research institutes in the United Kingdom
Research institutes in Cambridge
Mitochondrial Biology Unit, MRC
Medical Research Council (United Kingdom)