The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh

Key facts

• The institute traces its origins to the Institute of Animal Genetics set up by the University of Edinburgh in 1919; the Roslin Institute itself was created on 1 April 1993 as an independent institute wholly owned by BBSRC, and by 1995 was a company limited by guarantee and a Scottish charity sponsored by BBSRC.
• In April 2007 it was integrated with the Neuropathogenesis Unit formerly of the Institute for Animal Health; the following year it became part of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and in March 2011 it moved into a new building on the Easter Bush Campus.
• A TSE archive dataset, made available in 2022 on the Edinburgh DataVault, holds the Roslin and former Neuropathogenesis Unit mouse transmission data on scrapie, BSE, chronic wasting disease and human prion diseases from the 1960s to the early 2000s, with funders listed as BBSRC, MRC, Wellcome and Defra.
• The institute states it receives strategic investment funding from BBSRC.
• Neil Mabbott, Personal Chair of Immunopathology and Head of the Immunology Division since 2023, joined the Neuropathogenesis Unit in 1995 and moved to Roslin in 2007.
• The CJD Foundation's January 2026 grant round includes a Roslin project led by Mabbott on haematopoietic stem cell gene therapy for CNS prion disease, testing in mice whether microglia engineered to block interleukin-1 delay disease; the project runs March 2026 to February 2028 and no amount is published.
• Earlier BBSRC funding for Roslin prion pathogenesis includes grant BB/S005471/1 (April 2019 to June 2023, 467,252 GBP) on which gut immune cells carry or clear prions after oral exposure.
• Roslin authors wrote the 2026 Frontiers in Neuroscience scoping review of prion therapeutic strategies, which argues that glial and neuroinflammation targets may complement PrP lowering.
• A November 2023 PLOS One study from an all Roslin author team adapted RT-QuIC with an iron oxide bead capture step and detected misfolded prion protein in whole blood of BSE infected sheep up to two years before disease onset; funders were BBSRC and NIHR.
• The UK Department of Health and Social Care funded that blood test work, according to the institute news item, which names Fiona Houston as the Roslin researcher.
• A blinded October 2024 Blood study led from Roslin with French blood service, MHRA, APHA and INRAE Toulouse coauthors compared three blood assays on preclinical sheep samples: both PMCA versions reached 100 percent diagnostic sensitivity and RT-QuIC 61 percent, all three detected infection 26 months before clinical signs, and none gave false positives.
• That work sits under the BBSRC institute programme BBS/E/RL/230002C on pathogen diversity and host adaptation (March 2023 to March 2028, 3,398,478 GBP), whose reported outcomes include the three assay prion comparison and advice to Defra.
• In August 2026 the institute announced a 1.25 million euro programme funded by the European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare, led by Fiona Houston with the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute, INRAE, the Pasteur Institute and APHA, to trace the origins of BSE cases born after the feed ban, adapt PMCA and RT-QuIC to tell prion strains apart, and detect BSE in soil and farm surfaces.
• A Europe PMC search for Roslin affiliated prion, scrapie, BSE or CJD titles from 2024 to 2026 found seven records, split between the Mabbott glial and immune work, the Houston blood detection work and two cervid PRNP variation papers.
• The University of Edinburgh Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences prion page, dated 27 August 2024, says the National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit works in collaboration with the Roslin Institute.
• Leadership: Bruce Whitelaw led the institute from 2020 to 2025, Mark Stevens was interim director from September 2025, and John Hammond, Director of Research at the Pirbright Institute, was announced in January 2026 as the next director, expected in post by late spring 2026.

Timeline

1. 1919Institute of Animal Genetics, the root of Roslin, set up by the University of Edinburgh.
2. 1993The Roslin Institute established as a BBSRC owned institute.
3. 2007Integrated with the Neuropathogenesis Unit of the former Institute for Animal Health.
4. 2008Becomes part of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh.
5. 2011Moves to the Easter Bush Campus.
6. 2019BBSRC grant BB/S005471/1 on oral prion pathogenesis starts, ending June 2023.
7. 2022TSE archive dataset of historic mouse transmission studies made available.
8. 2023BBSRC institute programme BBS/E/RL/230002C starts, running to March 2028.
9. 2023PLOS One paper on blood RT-QuIC in BSE infected sheep published.
10. 2023Institute news item on the rapid blood test for prion infections.
11. 2024CCBS prion page names Roslin as an NCJDRSU collaborator.
12. 2024Blood paper comparing three preclinical blood assays published.
13. 2025Mark Stevens becomes interim director.
14. 2026CJD Foundation announces the Mabbott stem cell gene therapy grant; the same day the university announces John Hammond as next director.
15. 2026CJD Foundation project starts, running to February 2028.
16. 2026EUPAHW funded BSE origins programme announced.
17. 2026Therapeutic strategies in prion disease review published by Roslin authors.