MRC extends Blue Sky research collaboration with AstraZeneca

The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and its Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) have agreed to an additional $4millon (~£3.2million) funding to extend the  Blue Sky collaboration with UK pharma major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) beyond 2022.

The collaboration, launched in 2014, has supported a range of pre-clinical research projects which encourage ‘blue sky’ thinking around fundamental biology and disease. The impact of the collaboration has been significant since the launch, with some notable project discoveries including the following:

Researchers in John O’Neill’s group, in the MRC LMB’s Cell Biology Division, and Peter Newham at AstraZeneca discovered a mechanism whereby circadian rhythms within heart cells help to change heart function.