The History of the MBU
The Unit was founded in its present form in 2009, under the Directorship of Professor Sir John Walker FRS, but the Unit's antecedents go back more than a century.
Until 2009, the Unit carried the name of Sir William Dunn, a Scot who made his fortune in South Africa before returning to this country to become the Liberal MP for Paisley. On his death in 1912 he left £1 million to charity: to advance the cause of Christianity, to benefit children and young people, to support hospitals, to encourage education and to promote emigration. The trustees of Sir William's bequest were persuaded by the then Secretary of the Royal Society, Sir William Hardy, and Secretary of the MRC, Sir Walter Fletcher, to support the new discipline of biochemistry, and particularly the leading figure in this country, Sir Frederick Gowland-Hopkins, Professor of Biochemistry in Cambridge. The result was the construction of the Biochemistry Department in Tennis Court Road and the endowment of a Professorship and Readership in Biochemistry in Cambridge University. Gifts were also made to various other institutions, particularly the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford. The final £6,000 was used to build the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory in Cambridge, which opened in 1927, with its research supported by the MRC.
Over nearly 80 years of activity, the Unit's scientists made many contributions to nutrition research. In the early years important work was carried out on vitamin research, particularly on vitamins A, D, E and C, and later on their mode of action, particularly that of vitamin D. In 1966, on the retirement of Professor McCance as Professor of Experimental Medicine, Dr Elsie Widdowson FRS joined the Unit to become Head of the Division of Infant Nutrition Research. In addition to research in this area, she and colleagues collected material for the fourth edition of The Composition of Foods, published in 1978.
From 1973, under Dr Whitehead's leadership, the Unit moved into new areas of research in applied nutritional studies, making many important contributions in relation to malnutrition in the third world, lactation, bone health and energy requirements. In 1998, Professor Sir John Walker FRS, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, was appointed Director of the Dunn. The following year, the Unit moved to laboratories in the newly constructed Wellcome Trust/MRC Building, now named the Keith Peters Building, which we share with the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.
In 2009, recognising the Unit's advances in the study of mitochondria, the Unit was renamed the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit. In 2013, Sir John stepped down as Director, and was succeeded by Professor Massimo Zeviani. In 2019 Massimo stepped down to take up a Professorship at the University of Padova in Italy. In April 2019, Judy Hirst took up her role as the Interim Director and, following a competitive international search, Judy was appointed as the MBU's Director on 1 December 2020.
Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal
In 2018, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal agreed to extend her Patronage of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit for a further three years, to December 2021.
This was, once again, wonderful news for the Unit as it continues to pursue its scientific aims. The Princess Royal's association with the Unit began in 1990 when Her Royal Highness became Patron of the Dunn Nutrition Unit and we are delighted that The Princess Royal has taken a keen interest in our work during several stages of the Unit's evolution.
The MBU's Annual Lecture, initiated in 2003 by Professor Sir John Walker, FRS, the Unit's Director from 1998-2012, was known as The Sir William Dunn Lecture, in memory of the Unit's founding benefactor. In 2009, the Unit was re-named the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit in recognition of the Unit’s world-wide reputation in research into mitochondria and the growing evidence of their involvement in human diseases. In 2013, the Lecture series was re-named The Sir John Walker Lecture to mark his vision and leadership in the development and growth of the Unit in mitochondrial research during his Directorship. The Lecture series continues to reflect the Unit's major research themes into mitochondria.
Annual Sir John Walker Lecturers
2021 Professor Nikolaus Pfanner (University of Freiburg, Germany)
‘Mitochondrial machineries for import and assembly of proteins’ (Postponed; date to be confirmed)
2019 David Sabatini (Harvard University, USA)
‘Regulation of Growth and Metabolism by the mTOR Pathway’
2018 Vamsi Mootha (MIT and Harvard University, USA)
‘Genomics Approaches to Mitochondrial Physiology and Disease’
2017 Rosario Rizzuto (University of Padova, Italy)
‘The Molecular Calcium Reporter: Molecular Identity and Physiological Role’
2016 Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, FRS (University of Cambridge, UK)
‘Using Electron Microscopy to Study Mitochondrial Ribosomes’
2015 Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, FRS (University of Cambridge, UK)
‘Human Obesity: Causes and Consequences’
2014 Nick Lane (University College, London, UK)
‘Bioenergetic Constraints on the Evolution of Cells’
2013 Douglas Wallace (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA)
‘A Mitochondrial Etiology of Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases, Cancer and Aging’
The Sir William Dunn Lecturers
2012 Cancelled because of the death of Gottfried Schatz (University of Basel, Switzerland)
2011 Jeff Errington, FRS (Newcastle University, UK)
‘L-form Bacteria, Mitochondria, and the Origins of Cellular Life’
2010 Gerard Evan, FRS (University of Cambridge, UK)
‘Modelling New Strategies to Treat Cancer’
2009 Jodi Nunnari (University of California, Davis, USA)
‘The Machines that Divide and Fuse Mitochondria’
2008 Bruce Spiegelman (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston University, USA)
‘Transcriptional Basis of Energy Homeostasis in Health and Disease’
2007 David Nicholls, FRS (Buck Institute for Age Research, Novato, USA)
‘Mitochondria in the Life and Death of the Brain’
2006 Michael Yaffe (University of California at San Diego, USA)
‘Mechanisms of Mitochondrial Distribution and Inheritance’
2005 Cancelled because of the death of Stanley Korsmeyer (Harvard University, USA)
2004 Douglas Wallace (University of California, Irvine, USA)
‘Ancient Origins-Modern Diseases: A Mitochondrial Connection’
2003 Bruce Ames, FRS (University of California at Berkeley, USA)
‘A Tetabolic Tune-up to Optimize Health’
For further information about the Annual Lectures, please contact our Communications Manager, Penny Peck.
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