The Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest independent funder of biomedical research, announced yesterday (Feb 5) that it will increase its spending from about £2.5 billion (roughly 4.9 billion USD) over the last five years to about £4 billion (roughly 7.8 billion USD) over the next five years.

The trust said that it will put more money towards large-scale genetic studies, neuroscience research, and new technologies and facilities such as the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation.

The UK funding boost is cheerier news than President Bush's proposed FY 2009 budget, which cast a cloud over the future US science funding landscape earlier this week.