In its latest round of grant announcements, the Wolfson Foundation has agreed a significant contribution of £500,000 towards the upgrading of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) instruments in the School of Life Sciences. NMR equipment enables scientists to analyse the molecular structure of materials through the observation and measurement of nuclear spins in a powerful magnetic field. The new kit will significantly improve the advanced technology available for molecular analysis that is vital to our drug discovery pipeline, enabling our researchers to bring their scientific discoveries from ‘bench to bedside.’ 

The Wolfson Foundation is an independent grant-making charity, which aims to improve the civic health of society, mainly through education and research. You can read more about the Wolfson Foundation on their website at https://www.wolfson.org.uk.  

The Foundation’s generous contribution will greatly assist the School in its aim to grow its state-of-the-art instrumentation for molecular structure analysis to support research excellence in cancer research, biomedicine and drug discovery to help deliver real-world impact and further strengthen our reputation as a world-leading research institution.  

Professor Michelle West, Deputy Head of the School of Life Sciences for Research and Enterprise who co-led the bid to the foundation said: “The University of Sussex has a long association with the Wolfson Foundation, and we are delighted that they have chosen to help fund this new equipment. State-of-the-art NMR equipment is absolutely vital for our molecular structure research and this funding will help staff and students across the School, including our researchers in the Sussex Drug Discovery Centre, accelerating our work on the discovery of new therapies.”