Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: Understanding the emergence of human disease across scales

This is a Medical Research Council (MRC) priority area which aims to encourage integration of diverse experimental and observational approaches across various spatial and time scales, to advance our knowledge of human physiology and understanding of the emergence of disease.

Partners involved:
Medical Research Council (MRC)

The scope and what we're doing

This priority area aims to encourage the use of integrated methodologies allowing holistic approaches across the remits of all MRC Research Boards, with the goal of understanding how human health is maintained and disease emerges.

It is one of our MRC-wide priority areas that apply to all MRC boards and panels, which are used to help prioritise applications for funding.

Research proposals that meet this priority area will aim to expand our understanding of how disease emerges and include one or more of the following approaches:

  • development and application of novel tools, technologies and methods to integrate multiple modalities and spatial and temporal biological, behavioural or social scales, spanning molecules, cells, tissues, organs, whole body, exposures or populations
  • integration between complex multimodal data types, including genetic, cellular, polyomic, physiological, environmental, imaging, social or behavioural measurements
  • integration of diverse experimental approaches to understand interactions between cell types, tissues and organs and identify mechanistic pathways, including those common to multiple conditions

Applications that fit this priority area will be assessed alongside other applications to the relevant boards.

Find out which MRC board is most relevant to your research.

Why we're doing it

The MRC strategic delivery plan 2022 to 2025 highlights our ambition to drive a greater integrated understanding of human physiology and disease.

This builds on our investment in cutting-edge research projects seeking to develop a more holistic understanding, by studying the dynamic interplay of biological processes in humans across scales using diverse methodologies.

The mechanisms that maintain health and lead to disease are complex, and there are many components and influences that work across biological scales over time. These interact dynamically, from genes, molecules and cells, through tissues and organs, to populations and environmental exposures.

Adopting a more holistic view of biological, behavioural and social processes in a broader context will reveal new interactions and pathways, leading to conditions including, but not limited to:

  • cancer
  • neurodegeneration
  • autoimmunity
  • developmental disorders
  • cardiometabolic and respiratory disease
  • multimorbidity

This requires integration of diverse experimental and observational approaches across spatial and temporal scales to advance our knowledge of human physiology and understanding of the emergence of disease.

Achieving such integration also demands collaborative, cross-disciplinary teams, drawing expertise from biomedical, clinical, population, environmental, data sciences, engineering, mathematics, chemistry and physics and more.

This approach will enable modelling of health and disease in new ways that will help identify and validate diagnostics and therapeutic targets.

Who to contact

Ask a question about this area of investment

Email the MRC board most relevant to your proposal.

Infections and Immunity Board

Email: iib@mrc.ukri.org

Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board

Email: mcmb@mrc.ukri.org

Neurosciences and Mental Health Board

Email: nmhb@mrc.ukri.org

Populations and Systems Medicine Board

Email: psmb@mrc.ukri.org

Last updated: 20 September 2024

This is the website for UKRI: our seven research councils, Research England and Innovate UK. Let us know if you have feedback or would like to help improve our online products and services.