The aim of CIMR is to provide a unique interface between basic and clinical science that underpins our major goal of determining and understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease. CIMR supports excellent basic research and encourages collaborations between research groups and across major research themes, which broadly encompass medical genetics, metabolic medicine, cell biology, immunology, developmental biology and structural biology.

All of the scientists in CIMR are members of 'home' Departments of the University of Cambridge. At present there are 6 groups at CIMR who will be taking part in the RNAi Global Initiative. Four of the groups are led by basic cell biologists: Margaret Robinson, Paul Luzio (who is also the Director of CIMR), Matthew Seaman, and Folma Buss. The other two groups are led by clinicians: Paul Lehner and David Rubinsztein.

We all have an interest in membrane traffic, and we are looking forward to screening the human genome library to try to find new players in the particular pathways we work on, and then to determine their role in both health and disease. We will be sharing the library with Ashok Venkitaraman and his colleagues at our neighbouring institute, the Hutchison/MRC Centre, who will be using the library to address questions relating to chromosomal instability and cancer. For more information on CIMR, visit our website at http://www.cimr.cam.ac.uk.

RNAi Global Principal Investigators
    Margaret Robinson
    Paul Luzio
    Matthew Seaman
    Folma Buss
    Paul Lehner
    David Rubinsztein