Bio21 complex open for business
The Bio21 Institute is attracting world-wide interest for its emphasis on innovation both in establishing critical mass in world-class research programs and facilitating industry outcomes of the research.
The University of Melbourne’s biotechnology capability is set to leap now that four years of design and construction work on the $100 million Bio21 Institute building complex is complete and open for business.
The Bio21 Institute will be the University’s core biotechnology research and development centre, an incubator for new businesses, and a provider of industry targeted training and access to cuttingedge platform technologies.
The research groups have been selected with a view to creating opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and the development of critical mass in strategically important areas of contemporary biotechnology.
The Institute is expected to accommodate more than 400 scientists from academia and industry, including key researchers from five University faculties involving 10 academic disciplines at Melbourne and several Bio21-member institutions.
Four key areas
University researchers will contribute to the Institute’s core multidisciplinary programs in the four key areas of drugs discovery, health maintenance, agricultural and environmental biotechnology, and nanobiotechnology.
They will also provide the core expertise underpinning the Institute’s technology facilities, which include high resolution microscopes, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometers, and facilities for synthetic and analytical chemistry, functional proteomics, nanobiotechnology, animal models and bio-computing.
University-funded electron microscopy and State Government-funded nanobiotechnology clean room facilities will form the Bio21 Institute’s node of the recently established Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, led by Federation Fellow, Professor Frank Caruso (BSc (Hons) 1990, PhD 1994) (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering).
These facilities will also support biomaterials research in polymer chemistry by Federation Fellow, Professor Andrew Holmes (BSc 1965, MSc 1967), who has relocated his laboratory from the University of Cambridge.
The Institute’s Bio-Innovation Centre, headed by Harvard PhD graduate Dr Peter Goss, will be focused on creating an environment of industry-relevant technology and business innovation activities, initiating entrepreneurial ventures and developing early phase start-up companies.
Bio21 Institute Director, Professor Dick Wettenhall (BSc 1966), says integration of research technology, business innovation and incubation programs within the Institute is designed to incubate multidisciplinary research and provide emerging biotechnology companies with opportunities to leverage the academic and technological strengths and corporate networks of the University and its affiliated research institutions.
An Interim Bio21 Institute Board – accountable to the Vice-Chancellor – was appointed by the University Council in December 2004 to oversee the process of occupation and the implementation of management arrangements. Chairing the Interim Board is Professor David Penington, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University and a leading medical scientist.
The Institute will be wholly-owned by the University of Melbourne and operated within the legal, staffing and regulatory provisions of the University.
The University of Melbourne has contributed $50 million to developing the Institute and Atlantic Philanthropies, $30 million. The Institute has attracted both State and Commonwealth support, with the State contributing land worth $15 million, $15 million to the building project and around $7 million for key platform technologies, and the Commonwealth, $9.5 million.
Already attracting worldwide interest for its emphasis on innovation, both in establishing critical mass in worldclass research programs and facilitating industry outcomes of the research, Professor Wettenhall has presented to major bio-cluster conferences in Montreal and Tokyo, and to visiting delegations from North America, Europe, Chile, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and India who are interested in adopting aspects of the Melbourne model in their own planning.
For more information visit www.bio21.unimelb.edu.au
Uni teams scoop biotech business awards
A micro pipette sorting device and novel health and safety testing software for medical researchers won top honours for two University of Melbourne teams in the recent Victorian Biotechnology Entrepreneur Awards.
Run in conjunction with Young Achievement Australia and sponsored by Bio21 Limited, the Victorian Biotechnology Entrepreneur program asks teams to establish a company and develop and sell a product.
University of Melbourne student start-ups Byatech and Floreya scooped this year’s prize pool.
Byatech, run by students from the University and the Royal Melbourne Hospital, won the main prize, Company of the Year, with Labsafe, a software program designed to assess occupational health and safety competency in staff and students in scientific laboratories.
The company, which has sold Labsafe to the Australian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, also won the Annual Report and Environment and Community awards.
Floreya, a Howard Florey Institute – University of Melbourne student company, won the Bio21 Innovative Product or Service award with Rackyatips, an innovative micro pipette tip-sorting deivce.
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