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Plans for £20m hub to develop new medicines using AI

Aimee DexerCambridgeshire
Cambridge Stem Cell Institute Microscopic image showing two clusters of pink and purple lab-grown cells, known as organoids, surrounded by smaller blue and green cells against a black background.Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
The new hub is aiming to use stem cell-based systems and AI approaches

A new £20m research hub is being established in Cambridge to help develop new medicines using artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced laboratory models.

The site will be based at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Funded by the Medical Research Council, the hub will work with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH).

Researchers will use scientific models based on human tissues and diseases to improve the translation of lab-based research into new medicines. CUH said the hub would create "more accurate ways to study, predict and develop treatments for human diseases before they are trialled in patients".

It would also further "efforts to reduce dependence on research involving animals".

Professor Matthias Zilbauer, hub co-leader and honorary consultant at CUH, said: "By capturing important characteristics of individual patients, these human models allow us to study disease more accurately and test potential treatments before they reach the clinic."

Cambridge Stem Cell Institute Bertie Gottgens and Matthias Zilbauer are standing side by side in a room that has yellow walls. Gottgens, on the left, has short grey hair and is wearing a blue and white shirt. Zilbauer on the right has short grey hair and is wearing black-framed glasses and a blue shirt.Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
Co-leaders of the new hub, professors Bertie Gottgens and Matthias Zilbauer

The hub is also expected to use lab-grown mini-organs called "organoids" and other stem cell-based systems and AI approaches, bioengineering and clinical research.

Zilbauer said the initiative could "ultimately lead to more effective, personalised therapies while reducing the time and cost of drug development".

The hub will be led by Zilbauer and Professor Bertie Göttgens, director of the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and co-leader of the hub.

"By bringing together hospitals, research institutes and industry partners in Cambridge and across the UK, the Hub will accelerate the development and use of new, more accurate research tools that better reflect human biology to improve the development of new therapies," said Göttgens.

The Wellcome Sanger Institute, MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are also partners in the initiative.

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