Imperial College London

The Imperial College (IC) Faculty of Medicine provides the scientific co-ordination for the project and makes major contributions to a number of the work packages. The Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College has an international reputation for its excellence in medical research, development and teaching and brings together laboratory, clinical and populationbased sciences. It benefits from widespread collaboration with the scientific and technological strengths in the other Faculties of Imperial College. It leads the Intra-Faculty Cross-Cutting Genetics and Genomics Strategic Theme which aims to effectively link genetics and genomics to every medical speciality within the College.

The MRC/Imperial College Microarray Centre, Hammersmith, provides facilities, reagents and expertise in gene expression analysis using the Affymetrix GeneChip arrays The IC Faculty of Medicine Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division (KIRD) is an internationally leading centre in the filed of inflammatory diseases, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The research of molecular mechanisms underlying these diseases has led to the development of anti-Tumour Necrosis Factor (TNF) therapy, which by now has been successfully administrated to more than 500,000 RA patients world-wide. The KIRD is directed by Prof. Marc Feldmann, who in 2003 received the Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award for his role in the development of the anti-TNF therapy for RA. Current studies in four KIRD departments (Cytokine biology, Cell Signalling, Matrix biology and Clinical Studies) focus on understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern successful inflammatory response and on the development of new specific and ideally orally administrated therapeutic intervention. KIRD provides a unique expertise and resources for analysing molecular events in primary and disease human cells and the use of viral approaches to DNA delivery into human cells.