A new laboratory that hopes to produce the first permanent cure for leukaemia was opened in Glasgow yesterday.

The £3m Paul O'Gorman Research Centre at Gartnavel Hospital is targeting various forms of a disease which affects more than 2000 patients in Scotland each year.

The most accessible target is chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), which affects mostly middle-aged adults.

One of them, Dr Richard Rockefeller, great-grandson of billionaire industrialist John D Rockefeller, flew from America to open the centre, which replaces the old Leukaemia Research Centre at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Mr Rockefeller defied the prognosis that prevailed when he was diagnosed in 2000 thanks to Glivec, a drug the Glasgow centre helped pioneer for treatment.

Tessa Holyoake, professor of experimental haematology and director of the centre, said: "There was a big leap forward from 2000.

"Instead of using drugs which are poisonous to leukaemia cells and healthy cells alike, we are looking at how we can target the stem cells which cause the disease.

"It is like cutting the head off a dandelion. Unless you get at the root it will come back. I think CML will be the first leukaemia we will be able to cure. It might be five to 10 years but we are getting closer all the time. We hit on a drug earlier this year but there is still a lot of work to do to get it to the clinic."

The new laboratory is state-of-the art with the bonus of windows offering an idyllic view over Bingham's Pond.

However, Professor Holyoake said: "The key benefit is to be among colleagues we collaborate with: the Beatson Oncology Centre, where patients are being treated and participating in trials, and the Blood Transfusion Centre - offering improved access to blood and bone marrow samples from normal donors.

"Our basic science collaborators at the Beatson Institute in Garscube are also within easier reach."

The new centre is named after Paul O'Gorman, whose parents set up the Children with Leukaemia charity after he died from the disease at the age of 14. To her four separate research groups, professor Holyoake plans to add another specialising in paediatric leukaemia. But what brought the great-grandson of the world's richest man to Scotland to open the laboratory?

Dr Rockefeller, who helped fund the new centre, is a former physician who acknowledges unmistakable parallels with The Doctor, a 1991 film starring William Hurt as a glib, insensitive practitioner whose profession's shortcomings are brought home to him when he is diagnosed with cancer. There is nothing glib or insensitive about Dr Rockefeller, but he admits: "I was that outraged doctor. I was already a critic of the medical care system and became more so after I was diagnosed."

When he was diagnosed in 2000, median survival was four years and he did not expect to live to be 60. He is now 59 and, short of being hit by a bus, is confident his next birthday won't be his last.