Formation 1998 Budget £2.75 million/year | Staff 200 | |
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Affiliations | ||
The Division of Signal Transduction Therapy or DSTT is an organization managed by the University of Dundee, the Medical Research Council, and the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Serono, Janssen Pharmaceutica, and Pfizer. The purpose of the collaboration is to conduct cell signalling research and to encourage development of new drug treatments for global diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson’s Disease. Specifically the collaboration aims to target protein kinases and the ubiquitylation system in the development of these therapies. It is one of the largest ever collaborations between the commercial pharmaceutical industry and any academic research institute.
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Research
The focus of the DSTT is the study of protein phosphorylation and ubiquitylation.
Protein phosphorylation is a principal control mechanism in almost all aspects of cellular regulation of most organisms. Abnormalities in phosporylation contribute to many classes of diseases including cancer, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Awards
The University of Dundee received a Queen's Anniversary Prize in recognition of the DSTT being a model for research sharing between academic and commercial sectors. Elizabeth II and Prince Philip presented the prize on 16 February 2006.