Her Royal Highness Princess Anne has opened the Royal Veterinary College's new Teaching and Research Centre.

The Centre - at the college's Hawkshead Campus in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire - will provide a home for the RVC's lifestyle research, which includes conditions such as obesity/diabetes, chronic kidney disease and arthritis as well as those with genetic roots.

RVC Principal Professor Stuart Reid said: "The RVC is extremely proud to have welcomed Her Royal Highness to open the new Teaching and Research Centre - a facility where our students are taught within an environment that is all about advanced scientific discovery and first class research. The building houses the engine of academic enquiry and is a wonderful space where our academic community generates new insights into diseases that affect humans and animals.

"The Centre allows us to tie together the various threads we have around the study of illnesses that result from lifestyle in humans and animals, such as those associated with age or genetic disorders. Our College  collaborates with  the research hub that is the London scientific research community. We are extremely well placed to carry out the work in conjunction with human medical research groups and bring the veterinary perspective to the understanding of disease. The building offers new opportunities, both nationally and internationally".

Funding for the building of the new centre was provided by HEFCE and The Wolfson Foundation.

Photo: Paul West

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