Leeds Institute of Medical Research (LIMR)

Leeds Institute of Medical Research (LIMR) is a unique community of translational scientists, clinical academics, technical staff, students, and professional support staff, working together to tackle some of the biggest healthcare challenges faced by our populations. LIMR is located at the St. James’s University Hospital Campus and provides a natural bridge between the University and the NHS that facilitates access to patients, data, and bioresources, and enhances medical education and the clinical translation of research and innovation.

LIMR is the largest research institute in the School of Medicine. We have around 90 academic staff and approximately 400 research staff and students. Our academic staff lead an impressive portfolio of clinical trials that are changing the way that many diseases are treated. We are developing immunotherapies and personalised treatments for cancer, unravelling the genetic basis of rare diseases, contributing to groundbreaking international collabortions.

As well as our research, we are committed to excellence in student education. Our academic staff contribute to teaching on the University of Leeds MBChB programme (undergraduate medical degree), the postgraduate MRes Medicine and MSc Molecular Medicine programmes, also based at St James’s, and many other courses across the School of Medicine and the wider University.

Key to LIMR’s success are the highly engaged and diverse group of scientists and clinicians, ranging from postgraduate to post-doctoral researchers undertaking world-leading and impactful research to improve the health and wellbeing of people globally. Alongside the LIMR Technicians, we contribute most of the lab and computational-based experiments that drive and underpin the outputs generated by LIMR. 

Our technical support staff are the foundation of LIMR research, providing expertise in all aspects of research from infrastructure to the generation and presentation of data, in collaboration with academics. We host support specialist facilities that include Biobanking and sample processing, Flow Cytometry and Bioimaging, Histology services and Genomics sequencing.

The underpinning remit for all LIMR staff is the participation in medicine, translational research and clinical trials to discover patient-specific treatment or therapy, including working with patients and testing novel therapies in patient-derived cells.