University of Manchester handed $4.4m research grant

The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) and Photon Science Institute (PSI) have secured a Marie Curie training network grant worth $4.4 million to train the future generation of investigators. The four year grant entitled“MAGnetic Innovation in Catalysis”, known as the MAGIC Innovative Doctoral Programme, will see the MIB and PSI host 12 early stage researchers who will be appointed to three-year PhD training programmes. The University of Manchester will partner with six universities (Tokyo, Freiburg, Lund, Joseph Fourier in France, Edinburgh and Copenhagen) and five companies (AZ, Bruker, TGK, Conformetrix, and SarOMICS). Each early stage researcher will be closely linked to the international and industrial partners who will be actively involved in their research projects. Professor Nigel Scrutton, Director of MIB, said: "The concept of team-based activity is well founded across research groups in MIB and PSI and will enrich the training experience by bringing multiple skills embedded in these teams to MAGIC programmes. Our aim is to train the future generation of leading investigators of biological catalysis/enzymology in developing new enabling technologies that can advance physical understanding of catalysis and mechanism. "These collaborative research projects will explore the mechanistic details of enzyme systems by adopting innovative, versatile and unique experimental techniques to probe the contributions of motions across multiple spatial and temporal timescales and quantum chemical effects.  In turn, these novel methods will transform current experimental capabilities and will be applied to a range of important biological catalysts to probe the mechanistic importance of coupled motions and quantum physico-chemical effects.” It is expected that this grant will commence in February 2014.