Breadcrumb links

Navigation

MRC Strategic Plan 2009-2014

Going global - Strategic Aim Three - Accelerating progress in international health research IMAGE: Malaria. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a Plasmodium falciparum protozoan with red blood cells. These protozoa (yellow) cause malaria. © Eye of Science/Science Photo Library

The MRC will use its experience, expertise and resources to encourage partnership working in the international community to tackle important and challenging research goals.

OBJECTIVES:

Partnerships and shaping the agenda: To provide international leadership in partnerships which enhance the competitiveness of the UK knowledge and health base.

Global health: To support global health research that addresses the inequalities in health which arise particularly in developing countries.

Achieving our strategic aims and objectives

A VISIONARY PAST;
A PIONEERING FUTURE
An MRC-funded trial in Africa has shown that the most common disease of the central nervous system in HIV-infected African people can be prevented with a pill. Up to 10 per cent of HIV-infected African people are affected by cryptococcal disease and about half of those people die from it. The trial built on development work done by Pfizer in their UK laboratories and was carried out by scientists from the MRC unit in Uganda and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The study revealed that African people with HIV are less likely to get the deadly cryptococcal disease if they take a regular dose of the drug Fluconazole.

A VISIONARY PAST;
A PIONEERING FUTURE
A mother’s diet influences her child’s susceptibility to diabetes. The MRC funds a research grant based in India, led by Dr Caroline Fall at the University of Southampton, investigating whether adult disease is preventable by measures that optimise fetal, infant and childhood nutrition. Dr Fall’s team has found that there is a link between diabetes in the mother to diabetes in the child. Also, if the child has a low birth weight, doesn’t grow well during the first year and then grows rapidly after the age of two – even without being obese – there is an increased risk of diabetes. An added benefit of Dr Fall’s grant is that it contributes to better infrastructure in the Indian centres and allows exchanges of UK and Indian scientists.