Research & Development - Associated Organisations
The Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research (CCNR)
The Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research (CCNR) is a not-for-profit centre integrated within the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge. The key goal of CCNR is to conduct and coordinate fundamental research into major Neuropsychiatric diseases, identify surrogate biomarkers, develop diagnostic tests and therapeutic agents and promote their commercial development.
Psynova Neurotech is the vehicle in which to exchange results, resources and people between the academic Centre and the commercial world by exploiting the results of the work of the Centre, sustaining the research programme via joint grants and contracts and securing jobs to younger researchers wishing to industrialise their work from the Centre.
The CCNR team comprises 15 scientists, including a bioinformatics support group, which is complemented by an extensive network of collaborations with academic and commercial partners, including leading proteomics, genomics and metabonomics equipment and service companies, which provide access to specialist facilities and expertise.
With close ties to CCNR, Psynova Neurotech will benefit from CCNR research and the CCNR BioBank; a unique set of clinical samples including brain, peripheral tissues and biofluids from over 500 schizophrenic, bipolar, major depression and control subjects. The tissue samples are supported by demographic information, privileged access to clinical data and patient histories and have been sourced from organisations in the US and Europe, including the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI), a non-profit organisation that is the largest provider of funding for research into schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
The first group to apply large-scale proteomics techniques and NMR-based techniques to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the CCNR has conducted the largest and most comprehensive functional genomics study on psychiatric disorders to date.