UB to partner
with Irish universities
By
ELLEN GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor
The university
has entered into a new high-technology partnership with Biopharma Ireland,
Ireland's new national institute focused on biopharmaceutical research
and development, giving the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics
an important international connection.
UB and
Columbia University were named as Biopharma Ireland's first U.S. partners
at an announcement hosted on March 27 in Athlone, Ireland, by Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
Biopharma
Ireland was established by Dublin City University and Athlone Institute
of Technology to promote research that will lead to the discovery of new
pharmaceuticals and to the creation of new companies and new investments
based on that research in both Ireland and New York State.
"As a true
Center of Excellence, we need not only national, but international connections
and recognition," said Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi. "Ireland has strong
computer and pharmaceutical industries and is an ideal partner for our
bioinformatics effort. We are pleased to be able to have Biopharma Ireland
as a partner."
Bruce Holm,
senior vice provost and UB's representative at the announcement, noted
that "it only makes sense that as a center of excellence, Buffalo's bioinformatics
center should be linked with other centers of excellence."
"In particular,
Ireland has made substantially more of an investment in pharmaceutical
research than most other places in the European community. With our partners
in Ireland, as well as with Columbia, this is a natural, complementary
partnership for UB," Holm added.
The pharmaceutical
companies Elan; Wyeth, a subsidiary of American Home Products, and Schering-Plough
recently have made major investments in Ireland.
Biopharma
Ireland also is putting resources into developing spin-off biotech companies
that will benefit both Ireland and New York State.
UB's partnership
with Biopharma Ireland has its roots in previous research collaborations
with Irish institutions facilitated initially by the Atlantic Corridor
USA, a Buffalo-based, non-profit alliance created to link the NAFTA and
European Union markets.
Last semester,
the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and the Hauptman-Woodward
Medical Research Institute hosted visiting researchers from the University
of Galway and the Athlone Institute of Technology.
UB has
been partnering with Columbia University on the Northeast Structural Genomics
Consortium, a $25 million project involving nine institutions to study
structural genomics, a new field dedicated to determining gene function
by defining the protein structure encoded in a gene's DNA sequence. UB's
Center for Computational Research, one of the world's leading academic
high-performance computing sites, serves as the computational backbone
for the National Institutes of Health-funded project.
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