The

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

London Research Institute (LRI) was a biological research facility which conducted research into the basic biology of cancer. The LRI officially became a part of the

Francis Crick Institute The Francis Crick Institute (formerly the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation) is a biomedical research centre in London, which was established in 2010 and opened in 2016. The institute is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Impe ...

("the Crick") in April 2015, research transferred to the new Crick building in Somers Town throughout 2015 and 2016, and LRI fully closed in 2017, after 115 years of research.

History

The LRI had its origins as the principal research facilities of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), which was founded in 1902 as the first specialist cancer research charity in the United Kingdom. When the ICRF merged with Cancer Research Campaign in 2002 to form Cancer Research UK, the LRI was the largest core-funded institute in Cancer Research UK's portfolio. At the time of its transfer to the Crick, the LRI housed 46 research groups based at two locations:

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...

(LIF) laboratories in central London, and Clare Hall (CH) laboratories on London's outskirts at

South Mimms South Mimms is a village and civil parish in the Hertsmere district of Hertfordshire in the East of England. It is a small settlement located near to the junction of the M25 motorway with the A1(M) motorway and is perhaps more widely known because ...

, Hertfordshire. The LRI had an international reputation for cancer research. Themes of research included signal transduction (biology of tissues and organs, and molecular cell biology) and genome integrity (cell cycle and chromosomes and DNA repair). At the time of its transfer to the Crick, 11 of the scientific staff were Fellows of the Royal Society and two had received knighthoods. During its history, the LRI saw four of its researchers receive the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

Discoveries

Lincoln's Inn Fields laboratories

The laboratories are associated with a number of major scientific discoveries, including the discovery of the

p53 p53, also known as Tumor protein P53, cellular tumor antigen p53 (UniProt name), or transformation-related protein 53 (TRP53) is a regulatory protein that is often mutated in human cancers. The p53 proteins (originally thought to be, and often s ...

gene, the link between growth factors and oncogenes; the identification of mammalian homologues of the cell cycle regulator cdc2; and the identification of the sex-determining gene SRY. In 1975 Dr

Renato Dulbecco Renato Dulbecco ( , ; February 22, 1914 – February 19, 2012) was an Italian–American virologist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncoviruses, which are viruses that can cause cancer when they infect anim ...

, then Deputy Research Director of the Laboratories shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on the interactions between DNA tumour viruses and cells. In 2001, the Nobel Committee again honoured the Lincoln's Inn Fields Laboratories with the award of a share of the Prize to Dr

Paul Nurse Sir Paul Maxime Nurse (born 25 January 1949) is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alo ...

, then Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK and a group leader at the Lincoln's Inn Fields laboratories for his work on the cell cycle.

Clare Hall laboratories

The Scientific Director of the Clare Hall laboratories was Dr John Diffley. The laboratories were housed on a purpose-built research campus adjoining

Clare Hall Manor Clare Hall Manor is a former health facility in Blanche Lane, South Mimms, Hertfordshire, England. It is a Grade II listed building. History The estate was formed in the early 18th century. The house was built as a private residence in 1745 and b ...

(a Grade II listed building) located approximately 15 miles to the north of central London in the Hertfordshire

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which h ...

. The Clare Hall laboratories were officially opened in 1986. Under the guidance of Director Tomas Lindahl, Clare Hall became a leading centre for studies of

DNA repair DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA d ...

, recombination and replication,

cell cycle The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell that cause it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and some of its organelles, and sub ...

control and transcription. In addition, the site provided scientific support services of increasing sophistication over the years. Dr

Tim Hunt Sir Richard Timothy Hunt, (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molec ...

, a Clare Hall Group Leader, shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with his Lincoln's Inn Fields colleague, Dr

Tomas Lindahl Tomas Robert Lindahl FRS FMedSci (born 28 January 1938) is a Swedish-British scientist specialising in cancer research. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with American chemist Paul L. Modrich and Turkish chemist Aziz ...

shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with

Paul L. Modrich Paul Lawrence Modrich (born June 13, 1946) is an American biochemist, James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is known for his research on DNA mismatch repair. Modri ...

and

Aziz Sancar Aziz Sancar (born 8September 1946) is a Turkish molecular biologist specializing in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and circadian clock. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich for t ...

) for work on DNA repair.

After closure

The Lincoln's Inn Fields building was sold to the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

and demolished in 2018 to make way for their new Marshall Building. The animal facility at Clare Hall was sold to UCL in January 2018, but as of January 2019 Clare Hall Manor itself and other laboratory buildings remained advertised for sale.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Biological research institutes in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Former cancer organisations based in the United Kingdom Molecular biology institutes Research institutes in London South Mimms