Issue 2
Winter 2003
GRIP Receives $9 Million from Tobacco Settlement Fund
Wright State University is
one of the institutions comprising the Genome Research Infrastructure
Partnership (GRIP), which has been awarded a $9-million grant by the Ohio
Biomedical Research and Technology Transfer Commission (BRTTC).
The commission awarded a total of $21.5 million to three of 16 proposals
submitted in the first round of its Partnership Award program. The money
comes from a trust fund established with part of Ohio share of the 1998
Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
 |
|
Robert Fyffe (left), Governor Bob Taft, and David Millhorn tour the construction site at the Genome Research Institute in Cincinnati. |
"This is exactly the
kind of strong collaborative project we envisioned for Ohio's biomedical
research trust fund," Governor Bob Taft said when presenting the
award in October.
The GRIP is a regional partnership of academic, commercial, and government
research institutions in southwest Ohio. It was created in 2001 to enable
the partners to share high-throughput technologies needed for genome research,
to help Ohio become a preeminent genome research center, and to enhance
the state's biotechnology industry. In addition to Wright State, the GRIP
includes the University of Cincinnati, the Children's Hospital Research
Foundation (Cincinnati), Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Acero Inc.,
and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB.
The GRIP will have a highly visible hub in the newly created Genome Research
Institute at the University of Cincinnati. The BRTTC award will fund the
development of core facilities at this hub and the partners' other research
centers, including functional genomics and bioinformatics programs at
Wright State.
"This unique partnership provides an opportunity for Ohio to establish
a national program in genomic research," says Robert
E.W. Fyffe, Ph.D., GRIP co-principal investigator at Wright State.
"As a regional partnership linking academic institutions, industry,
and government laboratories, the GRIP can pursue significant new research
directions that no single partner could manage by itself."
The University of Cincinnati's Genome Research Institute has been established
at a 360,000-square-foot facility acquired from Aventis Pharmaceuticals.
It includes five laboratory buildings and two educational buildings. It
will serve as a hub for core facilities and also provide laboratory space
to investigators from academia and industry, an optimal arrangement for
the commercialization of new discoveries.
"The recent completion
of the Human Genome Project has fueled a worldwide revolution in the biological
sciences. However, the availability of gene sequences alone is not sufficient
for understanding cell function, or for developing important new diagnostic
and therapeutic products," explains GRI director David
Millhorn, Ph.D. "To achieve these goals, it is essential
for researchers to have access to high throughput technologies that are
designed to identify the simultaneous expression of large numbers of genes
and proteins, assess their function, and develop chemical compounds to
alter their expression."
"The BRTTC award will have an immediate impact on Wright State researchers," Fyffe adds. "It will enable us to continue to invest in core facilities at Wright State that can contribute significantly to the growth of the partnership. Those core facilities also will help faculty to be more competitive with their individual research projects."
GRIP Specific Aims
|
1. Establish a comprehensive research infrastructure that will allow the GRIP institutions to successfully compete and achieve leadership roles in the post-genome era. |
| 2. Use the infrastructure to conduct basic, clinical and pharmaceutical research which will lead to the creation of proprietary gene and protein databases, the development of new therapeutic strategies, new research initiatives, and novel drug targets, all of which will eventually lead to improved health care for the citizens of Ohio and the Nation. |
| 3. Create a "forward-looking" educational program in the genome sciences that will provide the expertise for fueling the development of biotechnology in the commercial, academic and clinical sectors in Ohio. |
| 4. Generate commercial products from GRIP research by new and existing biotechnology companies in Ohio, including our commercial partners. |
Partner Institutions
| Institution | Principal Investigators |
| Genome
Research Institute University of Cincinnati |
David E. Millhorn, Ph.D. |
| Children's
Hospital Research Foundation (Cincinnati ) |
Thomas
F. Boat, M.D. Co-Principal Investigator |
| Wright State University |
Robert E.W. Fyffe, Ph.D.
|
| Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals |
Douglas W. Axelrod,
M.D., Ph.D.
|
| Air
Force Research Laboratory Wright Patterson AFB |
John M. Frazier, Ph.D. |
| Acero, Inc. | James K. Holt |
Related sites:
| Gene
Expression Laboratory Collaboration and identifying promising new avenues of research are core elements in the mission of the Gene Expression Laboratory (GEL), the first facility in the Miami Valley region to acquire gene array technology. The GEL can provide core support at multiple levels to faculty who want to incorporate gene expression profiling in their research. |
 |
Signs
of Life
A new study from the Brookings Institution finds that nine metropolitan
areas dominate the U.S. biotechnology industry. Developing new biotech
centers requires strong biomedical research and the ability to convert
that research into commercial activity.
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