The National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC);

In 2016, the NIMR became part of the new Francis Crick Institute, which was constructed next to St Pancras railway station in the Camden area of central London.

History

Foundation

thumb|right|[[Henry Hallett Dale]]

The Medical Research Committee was set up in 1913 under the 1911 National Insurance Act. In 1914 it acquired premises for its research on the site of the Mount Vernon Hospital, in Hampstead, London. In 1920, it became the National Institute for Medical Research, which remained there until it moved to Mill Hill in 1950. and the discovery of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, for which Dale himself received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Moving to Mill Hill

thumb|Helio Pereira, the then-Director of the [[World Influenza Centre at NIMR Mill Hill, oversees flu virus research]]

In 1937 construction began on new premises for the NIMR at Mill Hill, north London. The main building was designed by Maxwell Ayrton, architect of the original Wembley Stadium.

thumb|NIMR lab technicians in 1950

Sir Henry Dale had retired in 1942 and was succeeded by Sir Charles Harington as the new director from 1942 to 1962. From 1950 to 1954 Albert Neuberger was Head of Biochemistry at the institute.

In 1962, Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar became director and, consistent with his research interests, established NIMR as a major centre for immunological research. University College London was selected as a preferred partner institution, and a nearby site in central London was acquired.

Some staff at the NIMR, including Robin Lovell-Badge and Skehel, expressed opposition to a move. In response to accusations of "coercion" during the review process, a House of Commons select committee investigation criticised both the MRC for losing the confidence of NIMR workers, and unnamed NIMR staff for "undermining [[Colin Blakemore|[Colin] Blakemore's]] position as MRC chief executive."

In September 2006, Skehel retired as NIMR director and Sir Keith Peters became acting director until the future structure of the new institute could be finalised. In July of that year the MRC announced that Scott Fraser of the California Institute of Technology had been invited to take over the directorship. According to Blakemore, negotiations were ongoing as of December 2006. and ceased to exist as a separate MRC institute. The site at Mill Hill was fully vacated and closed for redevelopment during 2017.

Activities

Mill Hill Essays

A yearly collection of essays was produced by guest authors and staff at the institute, under the title Mill Hill Essays. They are written to be accessible and informative to the lay reader.

  • Mary C. Lobban (1922–1982), physiologist who studied circadian rhythms
  • Robin Lovell-Badge FRS, geneticist most noted for his discovery of the SRY gene in mammals
  • Archer John Porter Martin FRS (1910–2002), chemist, 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography
  • Dame Anne McLaren DBE FRS FRCOG (1927–2007), developmental biologist
  • Sir Peter Medawar OM CBE FRS (1915–1987), biologist, 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet
  • Marjorie Mussett (1922–2004), biologist and endocrinologist
  • Indira Nath (born 1938), Indian immunologist
  • Albert Neuberger CBE FRS FRCP (1908–1996) pathologist
  • Janet Niven (1902–1974), histologist and pathologist
  • Anne O'Garra FRS, immunologist
  • Dame Bridget Ogilvie AC DBE FRS (born 1938), Australian and British scientist
  • Delphine Parrott (born 1928), endocrinologist and immunologist
  • Hélio Gelli Pereira FRS (1918-1994), virologist
  • Rosalind Pitt-Rivers FRS (1907–1990), biochemist
  • Christopher Polge CBE FRS (1926–2006), biologist, most noted for his work in cryopreservation
  • Rodney Robert Porter FRS (1917–1985), biochemist and Nobel Laureate
  • Elizabeth Press (1920–2008), immunologist
  • Sir John Skehel FRS (born 1941) virologist
  • Audrey Smith (1915–1981), cryobiologist
  • Geoffrey L. Smith FRS FMedSci (born 1955), virologist
  • Jonathan P. Stoye, virologist
  • Dame Janet Thornton DBE FRS (born 1949), Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute
  • Anne Warner FRS, biologist

See also

  • National Institute for Biological Standards and Control

References

  • The NIMR Website
  • Mill Hill Essays
  • Plans for largest biomedical research facility in Europe unveiled (The Guardian)