The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) Integrative Pharmacology Fund

Michael Collis. BPS, London, United Kingdom.

In vivo integrative studies using animals are essential in translating information from the genome into advances in understanding of human and animal disease and in developing the next generation of drugs. Surveys have shown that there has been a significant erosion of the training opportunities for integrative physiologists, pharmacologists and toxicologists in the UK. The bleak outlook for in vivo training, in the UK lead to the formation of the British Pharmacological Society Integrative Pharmacology fund (IPF) in 2004. AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer donated £4 million to the BPS to support high quality in vivo research and training in UK universities. Since its formation, the IPF has supported in vivo teaching courses such as the BPS/Physiological Society summer courses, worked with the BBSRC, MRC and CRUK to co-fund in vivo PhD research students and with RCUK to support academic fellows. It has collaborated with BBSRC, MRC, HEFC, SFC and the DIUS to provide Capacity Building Awards in Integrative Mammalian Biology (IMB) to six UK universities. These awards are to support and sustain a core of institutions in the UK with the highest quality research and teaching expertise in in vivo integrative pharmacology, physiology and toxicology, and with a long-term commitment to support an exemplary culture of animal welfare. The IMB awards are funding new staff appointments, PhD and MRes studentships and new training courses. The £4 million originally donated to the IPF by the pharmaceutical industry has now catalysed the provision of over £20 million for in vivo research and training including support for 24 new academic staff, over 150 PhD studentships and >500 undergraduate training places. This is an important start to re-building the integrative in vivo expertise base that underpins Biomedical Research in the UK.