A PIONEERING life sciences project at Dundee University was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education at Buckingham Palace yesterday.

The award was made to the university for the work of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT), a collaborative project that has united normally fierce rivals from the pharmaceutical industry in the quest to develop new drugs targeted at diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Professor Sir Philip Cohen, director of research for the school of life sciences, accepted the award from the Queen on behalf of the university. He was accompanied by university chancellor Sir James Black and Sir Alan Langlands, principal and vice-chancellor.

Professor Pete Downes, dean of the school of life sciences and co-director of the DSTT, was also at the palace together with a small party of students and staff associated with the project.

Sir Philip said, “It took two years’ hard work from 1996-1998 to persuade five companies to join this venture and to get the lawyers from each company to sign a single agreement, which was finally achieved at a meeting behind locked doors at Heathrow Airport! It is therefore very rewarding that it has turned out to be so successful.

“At scientific conferences GlaxoSmithKline have described it as the best run of the 1000-plus academic collaborations in which they participate worldwide, and the DSTT has helped initiate a huge number of new drug discovery programmes. Pfizer have described it as their most important academic collaboration worldwide.”

The notion that leading drug companies could put aside competitive instincts and share basic research was initially labelled by some as a “test tube dream.”

However the Dundee University’s concentration of bio-expertise in the field of signal transduction proved a great attraction, while the driving vision of Professor Cohen and Professor Downeshelped overcome contractual complexities to clinch a deal.

Initially involving five companies in an £8 million deal, a second stage signed in 2003 widened the involvement to six major companies and an extra £15 million investment.

The companies now involved are Astra-Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Co Inc, Merck KGaA and Pfizer.

Sir Alan Langlands said they were “delighted and honoured—but not surprised” that the DSTT had won the award. “It is a first class example of the ‘knowledge economy’ in action.”