Supporters of UB's proposed Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics (Informatics) are headed to Albany on Tuesday to bring lawmakers up to speed on the well-deserved reputation UB has as a heavyweight in computing technology.

Proponents of the plan-which aims to bolster Western New York's economy with the creation of thousands of new jobs-are eager to advance their aggressive agenda for this year's "UB Day," which comes on the heels of Gov. George Pataki's announcement in his Jan. 3 "State of the State" address that UB is one of only three sites designated for a high-tech research center.

"UB-Leading Computing Technology for the 21st Century" will be the theme of the day, which will see teams of some 60 administrators, faculty and staff members, students and alumni attending nearly 50 legislative appointments. Meetings with Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver also are scheduled, and the day will conclude with a 5:30 p.m. reception in the well of the Legislative Office Building, which between 200 and 300 people are expected to attend.

"I think it's going to be something unique in Albany," said Janet Penksa, associate vice president for university services and director of government affairs, noting that a major objective of UB Day is to diminish the distance that exists-both figuratively and literally-between the university and the capital.

"UB needs that serious recognition," she said. "People in Albany do not know what this university has to offer, (and) this is a prime opportunity to get them to understand why the governor chose UB."

The proposed center would provide state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for the university and its industry partners, with an emphasis on supercomputing, visualization and neuroimaging as it relates to bioinformatics, a science concerned with the interpretation of vast amounts of Human (and other species) genome data.

Penksa said Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello and Western New York business leaders also have shown interest in promoting UB's capabilities and are expected to travel to Albany. The larger community features prominently in the proposed center, as UB has for years collaborated with Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) and Kaleida Health in projects that accentuate UB's research strengths in biomedical science and computer science and engineering. Individuals from RPCI and HWI also will participate in the lobbying process, Penksa said.

While UB is not in direct competition with any of the other sites for designation as a center in bioinformatics, getting lawmakers to take notice of what's going on here is important to the overall process of obtaining financial support, Penksa said.

"Getting funding out of Albany is made possible by a series of events and image-building," said Penksa, adding that past alumni participation "has very much added to people's understanding of what is out here."

In addition to scheduled meetings, several of UB’s research centers, along with RPCI and HWI, will set up interactive displays in the Legislative Office Building, including the New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation (NYSCEDII), the Center for Computational Research (CCR) and the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR).

Russ Miller, director of the CCR, says it is important to understand the distinguishing intellectual and technological features that are available to enable Buffalo to take a leadership role in the critical field of bioinformatics.

“We have high-end facilities and staff expertise to build upon,” he said of CCR and NYSCEDII, which specialize in high-performance computing and high-end visualization, respectively. “These high-end resources are among the best in the world.”

Elliot H. Winer, associate director of NYSCEDII, said UB is well situated to surge ahead, not only because of its established infrastructure, but also because of the trained personnel who have been immersed in this technology since CCR was established a little more than two years ago. “Those two components are key,” he said.

The fact that UB was chosen as the site of the proposed Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics (Informatics) over many of the premier universities in the state should be all the more reason to trumpet in Albany what’s happening here, Penksa pointed out.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said.

UB would be among three Center of Excellence sites—the other two are in Rochester for photonics and optoelectronics and in Albany for nanoelectronics—that would share a total of $283 million in state funding over five years. The governor envisions other centers eventually being located at Stony Brook on Long Island and in New York City.