Experimental medicine: invited stage two application
Forecasted
Experimental medicine: invited stage two application supports academic teams conducting human intervention studies to understand disease mechanisms and inform future therapeutic or diagnostic approaches.
Funder: UK Research and Innovation
Due Dates (Anticipated): September 2027 (Closing date)
Funding Amounts: No funding or duration limit; requests typically £1 million or more; 80% of full economic cost
Summary: Supports academically led human intervention studies that test disease mechanisms and inform future therapeutic or diagnostic approaches.
Key Information: Stage two is invitation-only following a successful experimental medicine stage-one application.
Description
The Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, funds experimental medicine research into the causes, progression and treatment of human disease. Projects must address a clearly defined gap in human pathophysiology, test a mechanistic hypothesis and have a clear path to clinical impact. All disease areas and interventions are welcome, with the aim of identifying opportunities to modify disease pathways or enable future therapeutic or diagnostic approaches.
Research must include an experimental intervention or challenge in humans with an established safety profile. Challenges may be pharmacological, immunological, physiological, psychological or infectious. Supported approaches include novel readouts and technologies, and established drugs or interventions used in new settings to probe disease mechanisms. Early efficacy signals may be secondary measures, but mechanistic understanding—not treatment efficacy—is the primary focus.
