Submitted by Penny Peck on Wed, 05/08/2026 - 12:31
We are excited that the MRC has today announced a £50 million investment in the new MRC Centre of Research Excellence in Mitochondrial Genome Therapeutics (CoRE-MitoGT), which aims to enable new treatments into these fatal diseases.
CoRE-MitoGT will be led by Professor Michal Minczuk of the University of Cambridge. It brings together leading experts from across disciplines to define how mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cause disease and translate that knowledge into therapies.
Co-leads of CoRE-MitoGT at the University of Cambridge are Patrick Chinnery, Judy Hirst, Rita Horvath, Jelle Van Den Ameele and Alex Whitworth.
The MRC CoRE will partner with the University of Birmingham, University of Manchester, Heidelberg University and the University of Queensland, as well as the Imagine Institute in Paris, charities including the Lily Foundation, major UK national investments and research initiatives alongside industrial partners worldwide.
Professor Minczuk said: “Mitochondrial DNA diseases are devastating conditions that can have a huge impact on an individual’s life and on their families, and in many cases prove fatal. Our new Centre will provide pioneering approaches to understanding and treating these diseases."
“We will be building a long-term UK research platform with the scale, expertise and infrastructure needed to position the UK as a global leader in mitochondrial genome therapeutics."
“Our goal is to create the scientific foundations that will enable entirely new ways of treating these diseases and offer renewed hope to affected patients and families."
The MRC CoRE will harness emerging technologies to engineer the mitochondrial genome, delivering advanced models for study common disease-causing mtDNA mutations.
Further details can be found in the UKRI/MRC and University of Cambridge press releases.
https://www.ukri.org/news/mrc-funds-world-class-research-into-fatal-genetic-diseases/
Michal was also interviewed on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on Wednesday, 5 August, when he and Claire Wright, Operations Manager at the Lily Foundation, spoke to Dotty McLeod.
The segment starts at 03:17:40: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002zdlj