Cambridge Biomedical Campus

The importance of location

The Cambridge Research Institute is located in Cambridge because of the outstanding opportunities afforded by the proximity on the same campus of Addenbrooke's Hospital, the Cambridge University Teaching Hospital (which includes the Regional Cancer Centre), the world class science on the hospital site and elsewhere in Cambridge, and the growing biotech cluster.

Cambridge scientists have been frequently honoured for their breakthrough discoveries and achievements. Cambridge has produced over 25 Nobel Prize winners - 22 prize winners in Medicine alone. The City and its University are synonymous with both research and academic excellence. Cambridge is one of the most comprehensive biomedical research locations in Europe, with tremendous cross-disciplinary research potential.

In the last five years, Cambridge has become a leading centre for cancer research in the United Kingdom, recognised both nationally and internationally.

For example, in the year 2000, Addenbrooke's Hospital was one of the first hospitals to be named as a 'regional centre' in the new nationwide cancer clinical networks set up by the UK government. And in 2001, its cancer centre was one of the first to be designated as a translational research centre, reflecting its strength in translating laboratory research into clinical practice.

More recently, in October 2006 Cambridge was named as one of 17 centres for experimental cancer medicine in the country, and in December 2006 Cambridge Clinical School was selected as one of 5 comprehensive biomedical research centres.

The establishment of the Cambridge Research Institute in 2006 is a major component of the new cancer research developments in the region, and it is a catalyst in bringing laboratory and patient together.

The Addenbrooke's site

The Addenbrooke's site (a.k.a. the Cambridge Biomedical Campus) is home to a large 1100-bed hospital as well as a number of internationally-known University laboratories and research institutes. The site is located within easy distance of the Cambridge city centre and the surrounding commercial biotechnology cluster.

Addenbrooke's Hospital, part of the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is a teaching hospital and provides a wide range of clinical and non-clinical specialist services to residents of the city and surrounding districts.

The laboratory and clinical research institutes also located on the site, include the world-famous MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre, the Strangeways Research Laboratories for Genetic Epidemiology and the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.

Their close proximity to Addenbrooke's Hospital offers researchers ready access to vital tissue samples and also to the patient population. Collectively, the Campus focusses the multiple streams of scientific research in Cambridge - from public health to molecular biology and chemistry, and from surgery to mathematics and computing - into a unique cross-disciplinary and multi-tiered cancer research framework with patient benefit being at the very heart of it.