The initiative is conducting two research projects. One will study adult blood stem cells with the aim of using them to establish new experimental systems to test the efficacy and toxicity of drugs on human physiology. The other project aims to create new computational methods by which drug targets can be identified from human gene- and protein-level data.

The Next-Generation Drug Discovery Community and the Pervasive Computing Community (see MIT Tech Talk, March 31) are among four Knowledge Integration Communities that the Cambridge-MIT Institute is setting up. These groups are seeking new ways for academia and industry to push forward research in areas where British industry has a demonstrable competitive position, such as biotechnology and information technology.

For more information, go to cambridge-mit.