QUB medical centre of excellence opens
A NEW £10m centre is creating 17 well-paid jobs at Queen’s University.
The Centre of Excellence in Precision Medicine was officially launched today.
It will develop a laboratory focusing on diagnostics which can be used to predict a cancer patients’ response to treatment.
It will allow potentially costly drugs to be used more effectively by being prescribed only to those patients who will benefit from them.
Invest NI has offered £5.8m towards the cost of the project. The new jobs will have average salaries of £48,000.
Queen’s University’s acting president and vice-chancellor professor James McElnay said: “Queen’s University Belfast is at the forefront of molecular pathology, biomarker validation and test adoption in the UK.
“This centre of excellence brings a unique dimension to the bridging of academia and industry, making the fabric of our biotechnology sector in NI and the UK as a whole significantly stronger.”
Invest NI chief executive Alastair Hamilton said: “This new Precision Medicine Centre will provide access to R&D facilities for both local and international companies.
“It has the potential to develop ground-breaking treatments for cancer patients and will further enhance the personalised medicine and oncology research sector in Northern Ireland.
“While initially research will focus on cancer, this could extend into other areas of precision medicine in the future.
“Northern Ireland has a strong and internationally recognised life and health sciences sector, which boasts globally renowned leaders including Almac and Randox.”