Research

Major New Research Centre for Cambridge

A major new state-of-the-art research Centre will soon be sited in Cambridge, further confirming the city's reputation as a world leader in the field of medical advancement. This venture, combining the research teams of the University and the MRC has been made possible by the generosity of Hutchison Whampoa Limited, the large multi-national conglomerate based in Hong Kong. Hutchison Whampoa has committed the £5 million catalyst funding necessary for the creation of the Centre.

Based on the new island site at Addenbrooke's Hospital, the Centre will be known as the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre and will comprise a Hutchison Cancer Research Unit and an MRC unit specialising in cellular and molecular biology. The former will be staffed by specialists from the University and will promote ways of applying fundamental research to clinical treatment of cancer patients.

Visiting the site for the new Hutchison/MRC Research Centre: (from left to right) Sir Keith Peters, Regius Professor of Physic, the Vice-Chancellor and Mr Li Ka-shing, Chairman of Hutchison Whampoa. Photo: Findlay Kember

Business School Joins Forces with 3i

The Judge Institute of Management Studies announced in June that it is teaming up with 3i, Europe's leading venture capital company, to conduct a research project into corporate venturing or intrapreneurship (entrepreneurial business start-ups within existing corporations). The research aims to pinpoint why the many millions of pounds pumped by UK business into corporate venturing each year is not bearing fruit.

Lecturer in Marketing and Strategy at the Judge Institute, Dr Neil Morgan, will lead the research, which will run for over a year and take place in both the UK and the USA. A key aspect of his work will be determining the relationship between the strategy of the new corporate venture and that of the parent company.

Peruvian Incas - the First Eco-Warriors?

While we all look to the future for solutions to our environmental problems of land degradation and climatic change, a new study suggests our answers may lie in the past. In a paper published in Mountain Research and Development, a research team from Cambridge show that the Incas transformed deforested land with environmentally corrective measures such as tree planting, terracing and irrigation and provided the ecological stability necessary to develop the most extensive empire in the New World.

A team led by Dr Alex Chepstow-Lusty and Dr Keith Bennett, Department of Plant Sciences, took sediment samples from Marcacocha, an in-filled lake basin close to the ancient Inca capital, Cuzco, in present day Peru. They discovered that before 2000BC the landscape was deforested and dominated by agriculture and pasture. Dr Chepstow-Lusty believes we can learn from the evidence: " If the Inca can put a large population back on the land by redressing a degraded landscape with tree planting, terracing and irrigation systems, it should be possible to follow their example."

Funding for Cancer Research

A technique that shows up the genetic abnormalities in cancer cells has won support worth £150,000 from the Leukaemia Research Fund.

Work by Dr Ellie Nacheva in the Department of Haematology at Addenbrooke's Hospital involves the multi-colour labelling of abnormal rearrangements of chromosomes found in leukaemia cells, and those of other serious blood disorders.