The University of Aberdeen will this month officially open its Kosterlitz Centre for Therapeutics, which will take the findings of researchers and clinicians and support their development towards new patient therapies.
Centre director Professor Ruth Ross, who holds the Chair of Molecular Pharmacology at the University, said the journey from ‘bench to bedside’ is laborious, time consuming, may involve expertise that the scientist or clinician does not have, and will require funding.
‘The University’s new Kosterlitz Centre will offer all kinds of support to researchers and clinicians in this position, from helping with grant applications and filing patents, to approaching industry, pharma companies, investors and philanthropists for financial backing,’ she said.
Dr Iain Greig, deputy director of the Kosterlitz Centre and a medicinal chemist at the University, added: ‘We want to ensure that the “Eureka moment” a scientist or clinician may have in the lab or in a medical setting, perhaps when they identify a new receptor or pathway, doesn’t fizzle out because they don’t have the support to translate that finding into a new therapy that could help patients.’
He added that several pharma companies are already on board for projects, which will pave the way for the development of new therapies for cancer, heart disease, infection and pain.
The Kosterlitz Centre is also looking at obesity and neurodegenerative diseases.
One of the key areas of expertise in the Centre is synthetic organic chemistry, which will be headed by Professor Matteo Zanda, the Northern Research Partnership Chair in Medical Technologies at Aberdeen.
Hans Kosterlitz
The Centre is named after Professor Hans Kosterlitz, who joined Aberdeen university in 1933 and co-discovered that the body produces endorphins that affect how we feel pleasure and fight pain.
Professor Kosterlitz ’s Unit for Research on Addictive Drugs, which was based at Marischal College, remained at the forefront of opioid research for many years and he carried on working until he was approaching his 90s.
‘The new Centre will build on Kosterlitz’s legacy by capitalising on the wealth of expertise that already exists at the University of Aberdeen and ensuring new ideas and concepts are not lost,’ said Professor Ross.
The Kosterlitz Centre is a virtual multi-disciplinary centre which has received backing from the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA).
