Celebrate 100 years of medical breakthroughs funded by you

Medical Research Council - one hundredth birthday of the MRC, which boasts 29 Nobel Prize winners and a host of medical breakthroughs, all funded by the public purse

Half of people (50 per cent) in the North West don’t know their taxes fund medical research in the UK, according to a new YouGov survey run by the UK’s oldest research council, the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The results of the on-line survey of 2,190 adults in the UK were announced today on the official one hundredth birthday of the MRC, which boasts 29 Nobel Prize winners and a host of medical breakthroughs, all funded by the public purse.

To celebrate 100 years of life-saving science, MRC research centres up and down the UK are opening their doors - inviting the public in or bringing their science out to local communities to showcase the fruits of their labour. A range of different events, talks, experiments and exhibitions will be held today and over the next two weeks to tell the hidden story of health improvements funded by the taxpayer through the MRC and to introduce the remarkable scientists who make it all happen.

Of the 150 people asked in Liverpool, only 23 per cent of people said they’ve met a medical research scientist, despite the fact that life changing science often happens right on their doorstep. When asked which disease or condition they would study if they were a medical research scientist, people in the North West gave a full spectrum of issues close to their heart, with cancer and dementia being the most common.

Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, said: “It’s important for people to know how crucial their own money has been in uncovering health improvements that have saved millions of lives.

"If I asked the person on the street, ‘did you know you’ve helped invent the MRI scanner and DNA fingerprinting, or helped make skin grafts work or proved the link between smoking and cancer?’ … he’d probably look blankly at me. And these discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg of what the taxpayer has funded - through the MRC - over the course of its history.

"On the MRC’s 100 year birthday today, I’d like everyone to celebrate their own contribution to making the UK a world leader in medical research. Long may MRC-funded research continue to have such an impact on the health and wealth of the UK and beyond.”

In Liverpool, the MRC Centre for Drug Safety Science is holding a series of public exhibitions, talks and films at the historic Victoria Gallery and Museum on 20 June.

Scientists will be on hand to demonstrate the global impact of medical research in areas such as ageing, arthritis, drug safety science, genomics research and personalised medicine.

Find out more about the role of medical science in society and how MRC research is helping to improve the health of people in Merseyside, the UK and the world. Watch a film for a unique insight into our labs and hospitals, and a behind-the-scenes look at how our scientists investigate drug safety.

Key MRC funded breakthroughs over its 100 year history

• 1916 Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D 
• 1929 The importance of vitamins for growth and health 
• 1933 Discovery of the flu virus 
• 1940s Development of penicillin as a drug 
• Randomised controlled trial design pioneered 
• 1946 First ever British cohort study - following the lives and health of a group of people born in one particular week in 1946 for 66 years 
• 1953 Structure of DNA unravelled 
• 1956 Smoking causes cancer proven 
• 1960s Skin graft breakthrough (Nobel Prize) 
  Clinical trials of radiotherapy for cancerClinical trials of chemotherapy for leukemia 
• 1970s Invented MRI scanners 
  Invention of of monoclonal antibody production 
• 1970s/1980s High blood pressure causes heart disease and strokes
• 1983 Link proven between asbestos and cancer
• 1984 DNA fingerprinting invented 
• 1991 Folic acid cuts risk of neural tube defects and spina bifida 
• 1995 Deep brain stimulation treatment for Parkinson's disease 
• 2000 Human genome sequenced 
• 2001 Statins cut risk of strokes and heart attacks 
• 2002 Hib disease eradicated in The Gambia 
• 2007 Discovery that thin people can be dangerously fat on the inside 
• 2010 Cooling prevents brain damage in new-borns