ONE hundred years ago the Medical Research Council was formed to get rid of tuberculosis in Britain.

Now scientists at Oxfordshire’s Medical Research Council complex at Harwell, near Didcot, are battling a host of different diseases, including cancer.

The Medical Research Council was founded in London on June 20, 1913.

It has since made countless scientific breakthroughs and opened 62 sites across the UK – including key research centres in Oxfordshire.

Scientists threw open the doors of the Harwell base to commemorate the centenary of the MRC this week.

Today they are in Bonn Square, Oxford, for a science fair from 10am until 4pm to celebrate medical advances at the £26m laboratories.

The MRC funds the research centre at the Government’s Harwell science faculty.

Although the Research Complex at Harwell is only three years old, it has already played its part in scientific breakthroughs.

Scientists there have helped determine the structure of the protein which stops some of medicine’s most powerful antibiotics working – called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1).

Among them was research complex director Prof Simon Phillips.

He said: “Scientists are sent here from all over the world. It is great to be a part of it, and who knows – it could be even more exciting here at Harwell in the next 100 years.”

Researchers at Harwell have also been able to study how the structure of atoms changes over time.

Prof Paul Raithby said: “That could not be done before. We discovered that electrons in mobile phones are a lot faster than proteins in your body.

“It means we can develop and design new and more energy efficient mobile phones which use less energy and are cheaper to run because the battery lasts longer.”

One of the reasons the base is so significant is because it was built immediately next to the UK’s £383m Diamond Light Source synchrotron – which allows you to see the structure of matter at the smallest level.

Dr Stephen Webb, who works in cancer cell biology at the laboratories, said: “We are particularly interested in the cancer drug Herceptin which acts on certain molecules in cancer.

“It is used mainly on breast cancer patients as a tablet but it only works on 40 per cent of people, and it has horrific side effects – like heart failure.

“Scientists still don’t exactly know what it is doing, so what we are trying to do here is track the movements of molecules on the cancer cell to find out which 40 per cent of people the drug works on so we know who to give it to.”

To mark the centenary, 52 students from schools across the county were invited to the site on Thursday.

Didcot Girls’ School pupil Isobel Cheshire took a closer look at the structure of DNA by extracting the molecules from a strawberry.

The 15-year-old said: “It has been really interesting.

“I really want a career in science because it is how the world works – it is the future.”