The MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit (formerly the Dunn Human Nutrition Unit) is an institution of the Medical Research Council

Medical Research Council (UK)

The Medical Research Council is a publicly-funded agency responsible for co-ordinating and funding medical research in the United Kingdom. It is one of seven Research Councils in the UK and is answerable to, although politically independent from, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...

 based at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital site in Cambridge, England. The unit is studying the fundamental processes of human nutrition, especially in energy metabolism, the involvement of these processes in human disease and ageing, and the impact of diet on human health and longevity.

The unit takes its name from Sir William Dunn, who left £1 million to charity on his death in 1912. Part of this money was used to fund the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory, opened in 1927, with its research supported by the MRC.

The current director of the unit is Sir John Walker

John E. Walker

Professor Sir John Ernest Walker is an English chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. He is currently the director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit in Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.He was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Ernest Walker, a...

, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

in 1997.