Birmingham Uni institute’s Arlt to be new MRC London Institute Director
27 Nov 2022
Award-winning clinical endocrinologist Professor Wiebke Arlt will be the new Director of the Medical Research Council London Institute of Medical Sciences from 1 January.
Arlt, who is presently Director of the University of Birmingham‘s Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research and holds the William Withering Chair of Medicine, will succeed Professor Dame Amanda Fisher as permanent director.
Fisher stepped down in 2021 after 13 years in the role which has been filled since by interim heads Professors Petra Hajkova and Dominic With.
As new director Arlt will have charge of a core budget of £85 million over 5 years and direction of around 220 research and support staff.
The start of her tenure coincides with a turning point in the institute’s strategy and the move to new premises supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Imperial College London, on the college’s Hammersmith Hospital Campus.
Speaking after the announcement Arlt stated: ”I am delighted to take on the leadership of the LMS at this exciting point in its development, just when occupying a brand new, purpose-built building.
“I am very much looking forward to working with the LMS investigators and staff to deliver transdisciplinary team science, in synergistic interaction with Imperial and the wider national research environment. We will take a novel, challenge-based approach to tackle major questions of relevance to human health and disease.”
The approach would seek to capitalise on the organisation’s Hammersmith Hospital site location on the as well as its partnership with Imperial College London.
The LMS, which was established in 1994, is one of five MRC centres. It focuses on the biological mechanisms underlying human health and disease via genomics, physiology and epigenetics.
The LMS has just moved into a new, purpose-built cutting-edge research facility, jointly supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Imperial College London, on the college’s expanding Hammersmith Hospital Campus.
Wiebke will hold a joint appointment between MRC and Imperial to help maximise the engagement, strategic alignment and co-operation between the LMS and the wider College.
MRC Executive Chair Professor John Iredale paid tribute to the interim directors and praised former Director Fisher, stating LMS had made “excellent contributions to our understanding of epigenetic control mechanisms and in developing the hugely important and productive relationship with Imperial College London”.
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London Professor Jonathan Weber said: Arlt’s appointment would cement the “hugely constructive” relationship between the College and MRC and UK Research and Innovation.
“Wiebke brings an outstanding track record as a clinical academic to the LMS and will drive the translational research success our partnership aims to achieve,” he commented.
