College wins funding for obesity gum

An experimental anti-obesity drug which could one day be given as a chewing gum is among three projects to win funding under a new scheme from the Wellcome Trust.

The world's second-largest medical research charity, Wellcome said on Monday it had awarded a research grant to Imperial College London for the work under its 91 million pound ($176 million) Seeding Drug Discovery scheme.

Other projects eligible for first-round grants are a new drug for fighting cancer being worked on at Bristol University and a medicine against the MRSA hospital superbug from Oxford-based biotech firm Prolysis.