The School of Chemistry is the second largest chemistry department in the UK. The latest Times Higher Education Supplement places Manchester 10th in Europe and 43rd Worldwide. The School of Chemistry is scientifically very active, with over 60 full-time members of academic staff, about 620 undergraduates and more than 200 postgraduate students. In July 2006 the investigators will move into the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (www.mib.ac.uk) a £35M building designed to bring together physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians to solve complex, multidisciplinary biological problems (such as those discussed in this project). (Royston Goodacre)