NRP’s Royal visit

HRH The Duke of York visited the Norwich Research Park on Friday 25th June.

“We are delighted that HRH The Duke of York is visiting two of our Institutes on Norwich Research Park” commented Mr Paul Gemmill, Director of Communications and Information Management at the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council. “BBSRC’s underpinning of the basic bioscience pipeline through to innovation and exploitation is a crucial component in maintaining the UK as a leading business contributor at international level.”

The Duke of York toured the BBSRC Genome Analysis Centre where the Director, Dr Jane Rogers introduced him to the staff and explained how TGAC is addressing problems in agriculture, sustainable energy, food and nutrition, through novel approaches in genomics and how it is specialising in genomics technology, high throughput data analysis, advanced bioinformatics and innovation. Scientists at the Institute of Food Research showed The Duke of York their ‘Model Gut’, which is providing the food and pharmaceutical industries with a physiological, cost effective and ethical alternative to animal studies.

The Duke of York also met some of the other funders of developments on NRP, together with John Irving from Colney Innovations Limited, who manage the new NRP Innovation Centre and the Norwich BioIncubator.