Queen's University today announced that it had secured £32 million to establish a world-leading Centre for Experimental Medicine, a Centre which will help transform health care in Northern Ireland and beyond.

The new Centre will specialise in scientific research into finding cures for eye disease, diabetes and developing a global programme into understanding the genetics of complex chronic diseases.

Thanking those funders who have made the Centre possible Queen’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Peter Gregson said: "Queen's University is well advanced in creating an internationally recognised Institute of Health Sciences that will become a global leader in medical research and education. This will be further enhanced through the creation of the Centre for Experimental Medicine, a Centre that will transform healthcare in Northern Ireland and beyond. This exciting new development has been made possible through generous philanthropic support with leveraged investment through the UK Research Partnership Infrastructure Fund. The philanthropic support has included £15 million from The Atlantic Philanthropies, the largest gift that Queen’s has ever received."

-- Advertisement --

The Centre is being funded through a series of grants and philanthropic donations from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF), The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Wellcome Trust, The Wolfson Foundation, The Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust, Insight Trust for the Visually Impaired and The Queen’s University of Belfast Foundation.

The new Centre will build on established research quality in vision science by bringing it alongside new programmes in diabetes and genomics and will be open in 2016.