Spring 2004 - University of Kent

University News
Chatham on the Medway, site of the new Medway School of Pharmacy
Research & Development, and
Director of the Sandwich
Laboratories UK, is set to be a
major force for pharmacy. Under
the leadership of its first Head,
Professor Clare Mackie, the
School is set to grow substantially
over the next six years. With the
anticipated appointment of 24
new members of staff, student
numbers are expected to rise to
over 430 by 2010.
New School of Pharmacy
now open
The new Medway School of
Pharmacy officially opened in
January and will be accepting its
first intake of students in
September. A joint venture of the
universities of Kent and
Greenwich, the School is
supported by the international
pharmaceutical company Pfizer
Ltd, which is providing
sponsorship worth £500,000
over a five-year period.
The School, formally opened by
Dr Annette Doherty, Senior
Vice-President, Pfizer Global
University of Kent tops
funding league
The University of Kent attracted
the highest percentage increase in
Government funding for
universities in the country this
year. The University has been
allocated an 8.6% increase in
funding from the Higher
Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE), which means
that next year the University will
receive £45.9m in HEFCE
funding, bringing its total budget
to over £90m. In addition, the
University has recently received
£50m in capital funding
specifically to develop a new
William Gullick, Professor of
Cancer Biology
Biosciences: Two new
major grants for cancer
research
Dr Phil Blower and Dr Dan Lloyd
– working with Dr Paul Marsden
at St Thomas’s Hospital in
London – have been awarded
£347,906 from the Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research
(EPSRC) and the Medical
Research Councils (MRC). Dan
Lloyd: ‘Hypoxia, a shortage of
oxygen in tissues, occurs in many
diseases such as stroke, heart
disease and cancer. It is one of
the main causes of cancer
treatment failure, since hypoxic
tumours are often resistant to
conventional radiotherapy and
chemotherapy. This multidisciplinary
project will involve
the synthesis and evaluation of
molecules, coupled to radioactive
isotopes that specifically target
hypoxic tissue. It is hoped that
the work will result in the
development of both imaging
procedures to locate hypoxic
tissues within the body, and
therapeutic strategies for the
treatment of resistant hypoxic
tumours.’
Breast Cancer Campaign (BCC)
has awarded £78,620 to
Professor William Gullick, for a
three-year project that could
improve drug treatment for
breast cancer. Herceptin, recently
licensed to treat patients with
breast cancer, is a very effective
treatment and has fewer side
effects than other cancer drugs. It
works by binding to a protein (cerb-2)
on cancer cells that in turn
prevents the cells growing and
dividing. Approximately 20% of
women with breast cancer have
unusually high levels of this
protein, but Herceptin does not
appear to work in all cases. By
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