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Organisation Summary

The Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery

The Maurice Wilkins Centre (www.mauricewilkinscentre.org) brings together a number of key New Zealand groups with world-class skills in structural and molecular biology, proteomics, medicinal and synthetic chemistry, immunology, bioengineering and mathematical modelling; a multidisciplinary grouping that is unique in this country. MWC researchers also have international expertise in the biology of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and infectious disease, and include our leading groups in drug and vaccine development.
The overarching goal of the Centre is to combat serious human disease, by research into the underlying biological mechanisms and by the discovery and development of new therapeutic approaches. This is a fast-moving and highly competitive area internationally. It is also one in which there is an urgent need for new ideas, given the challenges of drug resistance, emerging new health priorities and the high attrition rate for new therapies reaching the market.
The MWC was founded with the belief that ideas can come as readily in a small country as in a large one, providing that research groups in NZ can maximise their impact, through collaboration and access to world-class infrastructure – a central rationale for the formation of the Centre – and that there are real linkages with the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, inside and outside NZ. The latter are provided by CRI involvement; by start-up biotech companies developed by MWC researchers, and by international research contracts.
An ongoing strategic focus for the MWC is to foster greater involvement of emerging young investigators in multidisciplinary research projects.