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Modern research programs also demand ready access to high-end computers and assay equipment, and the availability of state-of-the-art, environmentally controlled, vibration-free laboratory space — space that can be quickly adapted to the new directions and priorities that regularly spin off from the discovery of new knowledge. Working in such space not only better ensures faculty success in attracting sponsored funding but enhances the academic credibility of their work, Gilje said.
The new ITC labs offer all of the above, and do so in a building where involved faculty also find ready access to technology transfer services designed to help them protect and/or commercialize the intellectual property they develop; translational research support that can help them explore business opportunities; and a Start-Up Suite that facilitates pre-incubation of new companies arising out of faculty research.
Any faculty whose work is externally funded, related to biomedicine or biotechnology and potentially marketable within five years through the development of new products or a process is eligible to apply for lab space at the ITC.
What’s more, faculty with other science and engineering research interests can anticipate access to similar facilities in the not-so-distant future, Gilje noted.
“I’m very excited at the prospect that this building is not the end, that we will also be developing another building comparable to this for science and engineering,“ he said. “Hopefully it will be modeled on this successful building and will just add another layer of expansion onto our programs.“
The University received $6 million in state funding to design the proposed science and engineering building, and last year was tapped to receive an additional $60 million to construct it at the 21-acre Innovative Technologies Complex. Construction is expected to begin in 2007 and to be completed by 2011.
When senior researcher Kenneth McLeod was recruited to Binghamton in 2002 to start a new bioengineering department, he faced an enormous challenge: no laboratories and very little office space.
All that changed with the opening of the Innovative Technologies Complex, where bioengineering has found a home, replete with modern offices and thousands of square feet of laboratory space, including a new Clinical Science and Engineering Research Center.
“We’re growing by leaps and bounds now,“ McLeod said. “When you’re trying to recruit research-active faculty, it’s very different to be able to show somebody an actual lab and an office rather than to have to say, ’Someday in that building we’re going to have those things.’“
The bioengineering department, which graduated its first class last year, now has 16 faculties on its roster. Joined by four colleagues from the Decker School of Nursing — Sarah Gueldner, Geraldine Britton, Carolyn Pierce and Debra Bohunicky — they are tackling a host of research challenges, not just in laboratories, but also in the Clinical Science and Engineering Research Center.
“My experience in the clinic has been fantastic,“ said Craig Laramee, research assistant professor. “The facilities in the CSERC have allowed me to quickly set up and investigate new protocols for my research, without wasting time searching for space or equipment. Beyond optimizing our use of resources, the clinic has also helped to foster a collaborative environment, which I think is essential as we are increasingly challenged by complex diseases.“
Laramee’s research focuses on the identification of biomarkers for human diseases such as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) using high-technology approaches. Specifically, he works with surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (SELDI-TOF) mass-spectroscopy technology.
Other areas being addressed in the clinic include smoking cessation, diabetes, edema, osteoporosis and two large-muscle studies, one looking at the musculature of the lower leg to develop new fibromiography techniques, and another, working in collaboration with a group of physical therapists, to accomplish proof of concept on an easy, quantitative measure of muscle force.
“Given that we only opened in February or March of 2006, the center really ramped up nicely,“ McLeod said. Though he and others in his department work with equipment such as atomic-force microscopes and measuring devices that require vibration-free space, McLeod said the new ITC facilities afford something even more valuable.
“For what I do, I’m a pretty simple engineer-type person, and space is space,“ he said. “To me, state-of-the-art space means there are really good people there to collaborate with.“ That being the case, the research facilities at the ITC are clearly state of the art, he added.
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