LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
About UCL
Health
UCLPartners is one of five
designated Academic Health
Science Centres in the UK
providing the optimal environment
for combining research, educational
and clinical care excellence
Consistently ranked as one of the
world’s top ten medical schools
One of the top-ranking
universities in the UK for
research in basic medical
sciences and clinical medicine
Home to three of the 11 National
Institute for Health Research’s
Biomedical Research Centres
Health at UCL
UCL first offered courses in medicine in 1834. It is
now a major biomedical research centre and a global
leader in medical and health research. It blends research
and teaching in medicine with advances in clinical
care and population health through partnership with
four world-class London hospitals and the wider
health community.
In 2011, the School of Life & Medical Sciences (SLMS),
incorporating UCL Medical School, established four
UCL faculties representing one of the largest and most
prestigious aggregations of academics in biomedical,
life and population health sciences. The school
has a global reputation for teaching informed by
cutting-edge research.
The school’s academic environment is one in which
intellectual curiosity can prosper, while a high priority
is also given to the practical application of knowledge
to improve health and quality of life. This can take
many forms, including the commercialisation of new
products, developing and informing health and social
policy, and engaging with important stakeholders,
including the public.
1
Inspiring minds
UCL is made up of remarkable people: eminent professors
and exceptional students; public engagement professionals
and laboratory technicians; and all the other varied and
valuable staff who make up a leading university.
UCL marshals their collective efforts in order to address
issues in their full complexity and to contribute to the
resolution of the world’s major problems. But the work
of unique thinkers is equally important. UCL pioneers
include 21 Nobel Prize winners along with countless
other inspiring individuals.
Robert Liston, Professor of Clinical
Surgery at UCL, performed the first
operation under anaesthetic in Europe
in 1846. This made for one of the
most striking advances in the history
of surgery.
In 1921, former student Marie Stopes
opened the first ever family planning
clinic in London. It made one
of the greatest social impacts
of the 20th century.
2
In 1963, Andrew Huxley, then Head
of UCL Physiology, won a Nobel
Prize alongside Sir John Eccles and
Alan L Hodgkin for their discoveries
concerning the electrical impulses that
enable the activity of organisms to
be coordinated by a central nervous
system.
In 1964 Michael Epstein, Yvonne Barr
and Bert Achong identified the EpsteinBarr virus – responsible for glandular
fever – at the UCL Medical School,
Middlesex Hospital.
3
UCL physiologist Archibald
Vivian Hill won the Nobel
Prize for Medicine in 1922
for his discovery relating to
the production of heat in the
muscle. Hill shared the prize
with German scientist Otto
Fritz Meyerhof.
4
Former student Francis Crick
(UCL Physics 1937) and James
Watson identified the DNA double
helix, and were awarded the
Nobel Prize in 1962. Their work
formed the basis of the human
genome project.
Bernard Katz, former Head of UCL Biophysics, was awarded a
1970 Nobel Prize for discoveries concerning how neurotransmitters
are released at synapses – the junctions across which nerve cells
signal to each other and to other types of cells.
Sir James Black, former Head of
UCL Pharmacology, received a
Nobel Prize in 1988 for work leading
to the development of betablocker
drugs propranolol and cimetidine,
used to treat hypertension and
stomach ulcers respectively.
Sir Martin Evans, UCL Anatomy
& Developmental Biology staff
member 1966–1979, became
a Nobel Laureate in 2007 for
discovering principles to introduce
gene modifications in mice by
using embryonic stem cells.
Today, genetically modified mice are
considered vital for medical research.
5
6
Education for global citizenship
UCL is a world-class multi-faculty university, consciously
and deliberately global and wide-ranging in its reach and
ambition. The School of Life & Medical Sciences hosts a
raft of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and is
committed to providing a research-led and student-centred
learning experience. It strives for excellence and is committed
to making a difference in the world, aiming to provide an
educational environment that reflects these values.
At UCL, we believe that a university can and should aim to
shape students’ personal and social development, as well as
encourage their intellectual growth. There are numerous ways
that these skills are developed at UCL: through paid work
experience, voluntary work, activities with clubs and
societies or independent travel. This is what we mean
when we talk of a UCL ‘education for global citizenship’:
the term encapsulates everything done at UCL to enable
our students to respond to the intellectual, social and
personal challenges that they will encounter throughout
their future careers and lives.
7
1–UCL Awards
The 1-UCL Awards, funded by Santander Universities, aim to
foster the notion of UCL as a community, and to highlight and
reward outstanding achievement or endeavour by current UCL
students in a non-academic field. All winners receive £1,000,
which is paid by Santander Universities directly to a charity of
the winner’s choice.
PhD medical student
Christopher Bricogne was
nominated for his ongoing
commitment to setting up
and running UCL Marrow.
UCL Marrow works alongside
the charity Anthony Nolan to
recruit healthy students from
UCL to the bone marrow
register. A bone marrow
donation can be a complete
cure and a second chance at
life for people suffering from
blood cancers.
8
Medical student Janice Lee
was nominated for the award
because of her role as a volunteer
befriender with the Third Age
Project. For three years she
regularly visited Jessie, an isolated
and elderly lady. Janice donated
the £1,000 to the Third Age
Project to support its work with
older people in Camden. The
project is highly popular in the
community due to its aims to
serve local people regardless of
background or ethnic origin.
Student members of Medsin UCL, a very
active global health society, demonstrate
how many doctors per capita there are in
Africa compared to the UK.
Funny Bones
Medical student Kwame Asante
won the prestigious Chortle
Student Comedy Award 2012
at the Edinburgh Festival,
carrying off the £2,500 first
prize, plus the valuable kudos
the title gives to young comics.
Kwame has been performing
for two years and draws on
student life for his routines.
9
Research with impact
UCL orientates its research around four Grand Challenges
– Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction
and Human Wellbeing – through which concentrations of
specialist expertise across UCL and beyond can be brought
together to address aspects of the world’s key problems.
Across all subject areas our experts apply their insight,
creativity and daring to the planet’s major intellectual,
cultural, scientific, economic, environmental and medical
challenges – unlocking the power of academic endeavour
to deliver solutions of real economic and social impact.
Professor Martin Birchall (UCL Ear
Institute) co-led the European team
that successfully performed the world’s
first stem cell-based, tissue-engineered
organ transplant, replacing a young
woman’s trachea and allowing her to
speak for the first time in 11 years.
10
Professor Patricia Salinas (UCL
Department of Cell & Developmental
Biology) and her research team have
discovered that certain antibodies
are able to suppress completely the
toxic effect of Amyloid-ß, the primary
symptom believed to be a prime mover
in the development of Alzheimer’s.
Professor Rosalind Raine examines
the relationship between healthcare
inequalities and health inequalities
across socioeconomic and other groups
– particularly age and gender. She also
develops and evaluates interventions to
reduce the socioeconomic gradient in
healthcare use.
Silvia Purro and Patricia C. Salinas
4
Grand
Challenges
11
Project to cure blindness
Age-related macular degeneration is one of the leading
causes of blindness. Professor Peter Coffey (UCL Institute
of Ophthalmology) has pioneered the transplantation of
cells to slow the degeneration of or replace photoreceptors
– light-sensitive cells in the eye. He is working to find
the best conditions for transplantation, prior to clinical
application of the treatment.
12
National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles
Professor Anne Johnson (Co-director of UCL Institute
for Global Health) is principal investigator on the
National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal). The survey is now the largest of its kind in the world, and
three have taken place to date, all led by Professor Johnson.
The surveys have informed policy in numerous ways,
including projections of HIV prevalence and AIDS incidence,
and planning and promotion of sexual health services.
13
Unlocking the workings of the adolescent brain
Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (UCL Institute of Cognitive
Neuroscience) conducts research devoted to understanding
how and when the human brain changes. Her work focuses
on the development of social cognition and decision-making
during human adolescence, and autism spectrum disorders
and schizophrenia.
By employing a variety of behavioural and neuroimaging
methods, Professor Blakemore and her team have
demonstrated that brain-wise, the most dramatic change
in the brain during adolescence occurs to the prefrontal
cortex, the area of the brain involved in high-level
cognitive functions.
14
Healthy ageing
Professor Linda Partridge (UCL Institute
of Healthy Ageing) investigates the
biology of ageing. She is deepening the
understanding of both how the rate
of ageing evolves in nature and the
mechanisms by which healthy lifespan
can be extended in laboratory model
organisms. She has focused in particular
on the role of nutrient-sensing pathways
and on dietary restriction. Professor
Partridge is currently working towards
developing pharmacological treatments
that improve the human ageing process
and, as a result, enable better health
during ageing.
15
16
Crossing subject boundaries
UCL has made research that takes place across disciplines
a priority, as exemplified by its approach to the Grand
Challenges. Merging and working across traditional subject
barriers enables ideas from one subject area to be seeded
into another, resulting in fruitful new ideas – and even
new disciplines.
Scientific breakthroughs (and retention and exploitation of
new ideas) are more likely if interdisciplinarity is encouraged
and facilitated. The SLMS Research Domains are fluid
interdisciplinary networks that encompass the breadth of
research activity across the School, UCL and, in some cases,
external partners. There are nine core groupings: Basic Life
Science; Cancer; Cardiometabolic science; Experimental
Medicine; Infection, Immunology and Inflammation;
Population health; Neuroscience; Reproduction and
Development; as well as a Frontiers ‘think tank’ which
scopes the future focus of scientific endeavour.
Biomedical and life sciences research is carried out in all the
SLMS domains by researchers who are among the leaders
of their fields, using the most modern techniques to address
important problems in both basic and applied biomedical
sciences. Members of our academic community engage in
one or more of the domains according to their research
activity, encouraging research that spans disciplines across
our school and beyond.
17
Progress through partnership
UCL takes a partnership approach to developing real-world
solutions for health issues.
Forging successful partnerships with a range of institutions
– including other universities, hospitals, schools, business
and government – is central to UCL’s belief in maximising
the social impact of its intellectual resources.
UCL hosts three of the 11 Biomedical
Research Centres of the National
Institute for Health Research, which
are leaders in scientific translation of
fundamental biomedical research into
clinical research that benefits patients.
18
The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre is
a partnership between the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation and the
Wellcome Trust to establish a new
Research Centre in Neural Circuits and
Behaviour at UCL, capitalising on the
strength of UCL’s neuroscience research
community and its relationships with
local medical research organisations.
UCL is a founder member of GMEC,
the Global Medical Excellence Cluster
involving the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, Imperial College, King’s
College and Queen Mary University
of London, together with partner NHS
Trusts and industrial collaborators.
Its aim is to retain the UK’s global
competitiveness in biomedical research,
attracting inward investment and thereby
advancing healthcare.
19
Ian Ritchie Architects
The Francis Crick Institute
UCLPartners
The Francis Crick Institute ­
– a partnership between UCL, the
Medical Research Council, Cancer
Research UK, the Wellcome Trust,
Imperial College London and
King’s College London – is a
£650 million medical research
centre in St Pancras due to open
in 2015. The institute will be
Europe’s leading centre for medical
research, investigating why disease
develops and new ways to prevent
and treat illnesses such as cancer,
heart disease and stroke, infections,
and neurodegenerative diseases.
UCLPartners, one of the UK’s
first Academic Health Science
Centres, initially brought together
UCL with Great Ormond Street,
Moorfields, Royal Free, and
UCL Hospitals NHS Trusts
to improve population health.
It now embraces a wide range
of partners to enable discoveries
in basic science to be translated
into treatments more quickly,
and to improve patient and
population health outcomes.
20
The Yale UCL Collaborative
The collaborative, established between UCL,
UCLPartners, Yale University, Yale School of
Medicine and Yale–New Haven Hospital, is
the largest collaboration in the history of both
universities. In biomedical research, it aims to
bring about a more rapid conversion of basic
science into therapeutic benefits.
21
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Enterprise
As a university, UCL seeks to generate and apply new
knowledge in order to transform society. Knowledge transfer,
entrepreneurship and industry partnerships are critical
components of this endeavour.
In the School of Life & Medical Sciences this takes many
different forms. While some academics are working on
drug discovery and novel translational therapeutics for
human disease, others construct new biomedical devices
or internet-based therapies. As well as working with
small and large businesses, we actively pursue knowledge
transfer through engagement with many different
audiences, and by influencing the policy of government
and other public bodies.
Professor Yvonne Rogers (UCL
Interaction Centre) is leading the new
Intel Collaborative Research Institute
on Sustainable and Connected Cities,
which works to optimise resource
efficiency in urban environments.
Dr Jon Bird (UCL Interaction Centre)
and Dr Ed Fottrell (UCL Institute for
Global Health) developed mobile
phone software that allows people
to record probable cause of death
in countries where reliable statistics
are unavailable.
The StoreGene Initiative delivers
genetic risk profiling, based on
research from the UCL Cardiovascular
Genetics Group, for people at risk
of coronary heart disease, enabling
patients to benefit from enhanced
interventions and improvement in
their quality of life.
Professor Nilli Lavie (UCL Institute of
Cognitive Neuroscience) collaborates
with Toyota Motor Europe’s technology
team to investigate the effects of
information overload on drivers.
23
London Life Science Concordat
UCL Partners is a signatory to the London Life Science
Concordat, which encourages and enables the three Academic
Health Sciences Centres serving London to work together
to deliver world-class research, education and patient care.
The aim is to reposition London as a global leader, attracting
talent and inward investment.
Innovation in imaging sciences
Imanova Limited is an
alliance between UCL, the
Medical Research Council,
Imperial College and King’s
College London. It brings
together a breadth and depth
of knowledge and expertise
that will drive research and
innovation in imaging sciences.
Imanova will have a real
impact on human health and
the understanding of disease.
Drug repurposing to treat rheumatoid arthritis
Professor Jo Edwards (UCL Medicine) conducted research
into rheumatoid arthritis indicating the key role that B
cells play in the disease. His research, published in the
New England Journal of Medicine, led to the licensing
of Rituximab (a drug which destroys B cells) for use in
rheumatoid arthritis.
24
The Royal Free was the first
medical school to admit
women students
UCL Medical School ranked
first in London for student
satisfaction
The new MBBS curriculum
is designed to maximise the
advantages of training at
one of the UK’s Academic
Health Science Centres, and
to ensure UCL trains the
very highest quality doctors
well prepared for practice in
the 21st century
The UCL School of Life
& Medical Sciences is the
UK’s strongest biomedical
grouping by ‘research power’
(RAE 2008).
www.ucl.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7679 2000
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