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Our investment in medical research

We’re proud to be supporting some of the most exciting and groundbreaking medical research in the UK. Over the past 16 years we have awarded more than £7.6 million in support of over 75 medical research projects. Key sponsorship in 2006 included research into cures for deafness, blindness and muscle disease.

Further information about how your medical research organisation can apply for support is available in the UK Criteria for support.

Below is just a sample of the work that we currently provide funding for:

Muscular Dystrophy Campaign
There are more than 60 types of muscle disease, including those such as muscular dystrophy that affect the mitochondria – structures within cells that provide muscles with energy.

An exciting new project will investigate ways of preventing mothers with genetic mitochondrial disorders from passing the condition on to their babies.

Findings of the project, based at Newcastle’s Centre for Life, will help translate the genetic information into improved healthcare for patients with this group of muscle diseases.

Deafness Research UK
Through pioneering new research it is hoped that a cure for deafness using stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood or bone marrow can be developed.

For the first time in this field, scientists will use promising new lines of stem cells, which do not have the same ethical issues surrounding traditional stem cell research.

The research project will run for three years and is based at the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield.

British Retinitis Pigmentosa Association
GSK is backing the BRPA’s campaign to fight blindness with sponsorship of a two-year project that aims to map the genes involved in retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

With this eye disease the retina slowly loses its ability to transmit pictures to the brain. There is currently no treatment that can stop the progress of RP, which can eventually lead to blindness.

 

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