Medical Research Council (United Kingdom)

The Medical Research Council ( MRC) is a research organization in the United Kingdom in the field of medicine and related biological disciplines. She is one of seven such Research Councils and maintains three main Institute in Cambridge, Mill Hill and Hammersmith as well as 35 smaller facilities within the United Kingdom. It also operates offices in Gambia and Uganda.

The organization was founded as the Medical Research Committee and Advisory Council in 1913 and 1920 received its current name.

Research services

Through the support of the MRC numerous groundbreaking research services are rendered. With the MRC affiliated scientists received 22 Nobel Prizes. Important discoveries were:

• Proof by Edward Mellanby that rickets is nutritionally
• Evidence that influenza is a viral disease (1918 )
• The discovery of the first neurotransmitter ( acetylcholine ) by Henry Hallett Dale and Otto Loewi (Nobel Prize 1936)
• The development of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain and Howard Walter Florey (Nobel Prize 1945)
• The recognition of the link between lung cancer and tobacco smoking by Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill ( 1956)
• The discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid by James D. Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins (Nobel Prize 1962)
• Development of magnetic resonance imaging in 1973 by Peter Mansfield and Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Prize 2003)
• Development of monoclonal antibodies by César Milstein and Georges Kohler 1975 ( Nobel Prize 1984)