Major recruitment drive to put Norwich on map
Norwich is on its way to becoming a major centre for research into diseases affecting the gut, bone and muscle.
A major recruitment drive is underway to appoint 12 clinical academics and 30 researchers with expertise in diseases of the gut, bone and muscle. In time it will lead to the creation of two new centres: The Institute of the Gut, Norwich and the Norwich Institute of Bone and Muscle.
The initiative is being led by Professor Andrew Coats, Professor at Large, whose own appointment spans the Norwich Research Park (NRP), the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, and four independent research centres; the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory and The Genome Analysis Centre.
With over 11,000 people, Norwich already has Europe’s largest single-site concentration of research in Health, Food and Environmental Sciences and has over 30 science and IT based companies in similar areas.
Although only a fraction of the way through the expansion plans, some key appointments have already been made such as a leading gastroenterologist, two new academic gut researchers, two senior academic cardiologists and a leading osteoporosis expert.
Professor Coats said: “A hundred thousand species of bacteria live in the gut. We don’t even know 2/3rds of them and we can’t grow them in laboratory conditions. But we can identify them through genetics and are working with the Genome Analysis Centre to find out more about the bacteria we’ve shared evolution with.”
Following on from becoming experts in the field of diseases of the gut, the second part of the strategy is to look into where poor nutrition or diet can lead to a lack of function or growth of tissue, and loss of weight in terms of bone and muscle.
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