London

Sales pitch: will Wellcome buy London's Dome? Credit: AP

London's Millennium Dome could be transformed from a national embarrassment into a leading centre for biomedical research.

The Wellcome Trust, the world's largest medical research charity, has reportedly earmarked £300 million (US$420 million) for a bid to convert the riverside site into laboratories and an exhibition space featuring the trust's work.

The trust would not comment on the reports, which first appeared in The Sunday Telegraph, but issued a statement saying that its “investment portfolio is constantly under review and at any one time several opportunities may be under consideration”.

The Dome was conceived as the centrepiece of Britain's millennium celebrations, its huge tent-like structure housing a series of exhibits illustrating contemporary life. It cost more than £600 million, but attracted only about half of its projected 12 million visitors during its year-long opening. The whole site now lies empty, costing the government £1 million per month to maintain.

Buying the Dome is well within the financial reach of the Wellcome Trust, which has assets of some £15 billion. The £300 million is reported to cover both the costs of purchasing the site and building laboratory facilities.

The Wellcome Trust has previously invested large sums in research facilities, most notably to build the Sanger Centre at Hinxton near Cambridge, responsible for sequencing one-third of the human genome.

But the trust has been frustrated by the denial of planning permission for a £100-million extension at Hinxton to provide space for spin-off biotechnology companies (see Nature 400, 803; 1999). The trust says it still intends to pursue a revised application.

There is a shortage of laboratory space in the British capital, as highlighted by a group called the London Biotechnology Network, which said last month that up to 40 new biotech companies will need more than 5,000 square metres of lab space within the next two years.