| | | KVCC joins high-tech Michigan alliance
KVCC has been invited to join the Core Technology Alliance (CTA), a coalition of major, life-science research initiatives based at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids.
KVCC's Michigan High Throughput Screening Center is the first core facility added to the Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor's CTA that was established by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to foster biotechnology research and business-development applications.
The CTA's mission is to place the state of Michigan on the leading edge of medical, health-care and industrial breakthroughs via research into the life sciences and biotechnology.
As the only community college in the alliance and as the first institution invited to join the core group of four, KVCC brings to the initiative its nonprofit Michigan High Throughput Screening Center that is being installed in 5,000 square feet of space at the Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) in The Groves.
“Connection to the CTA,” said President Marilyn Schlack, “will have major economic-development and employment ramifications for Southwest Michigan, will offer tremendous learning and training opportunities for KVCC students and students from other institutions, and serve as a pipeline for additional funding at both the state and national levels.”
When completed by this June, the screening center will be providing the computerized, high-speed and roboticized procedures that can potentially accelerate the drug-discovery process for small pharmaceutical companies, major research universities, and start-up enterprises that are probing the potential of the life sciences and biotechnology for medical and business-development innovations.
KVCC's screening center will be joining a collaborative network of advanced technology facilities that includes the Michigan Animal Models Consortium at the Van Andel Institute, the Michigan Center for Biological Information and the Michigan Proteome Consortium that are both part of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus, the Michigan Center for Genomic Technologies at Wayne State University, and the Michigan Center for Structural Biology at Michigan State University.
“The addition of the KVCC center,” said George F. Vande Woude, director of the Van Andel institute and CTA president/chief executive officer, “substantially enhances the CTA's technological offerings and brings its capabilities in line with its vision to be a virtual life-sciences company with corporate assets and technology available to entrepreneurs in life sciences.”
When operational,” said James DeHaven, the M-TEC's executive director, the screening center will be “a self-sustaining, not-for-profit, contract research organization. It will be in sync with and complementary to what the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center is trying to accomplish in biotechnology and the life sciences.
“The drug-discovery process is complex and costly,” he said, “and this independent high throughput screening center will be a tool for the early discovery of what are called 'chemical hits and leads,' compounds that are starting points for accomplishing what is being sought in drug development. It can provide a starting point for the identification of those compounds that show promise in pharmaceutical research and development.”
“Screening chemical libraries for biological activity has been the cornerstone of the drug-discovery process,” said Douglas Morton, chief executive officer of the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center and chairman of the screening center's scientific advisory board. “Effective high throughput screening has been primarily limited to large pharmaceutical companies because of the high cost of establishing and running these facilities.
“The center will also be a tool for generating and supporting intellectual property,” Morton said, “allowing its clients to demonstrate that their concept is valid and to gain an early indication of utility.”
“Although other competing nonprofit and private screening facilities are sprinkled throughout the country,” Schlack said, “the KVCC facility will offer its clients unique access to pharmaceutical-trained industry experts to guide them through the process. Because of this access to such experts and scientists, significant training opportunities will come our way, along with highly valued practical experiences for academic communities throughout Michigan and the Midwest.”
Michael Collins, vice president for college relations, reports that the design-and-development phase of the project is already under way, with the actual alterations of M-TEC space and the installation of equipment, some of which is being donated by Pfizer Inc. and provided by Western Michigan University, scheduled to get started in February.
Collins said the M-TEC's high throughput screening operation will be “comparable to other centers in the pharmaceutical industry with respect to best practices. We will be offering clients something that other public screening facilities often do not - direct access to trained experts from the pharmaceutical industry who are highly skilled in the assay-development, screening, and data-interpretation processes.”
When KVCC announced that the M-TEC would be hosting such an advance-technology facility, DeHaven said he foresaw it being utilized by small biotechnology firms, by government laboratories, by nonprofit organizations, by some major companies, and by major academic institutions doing research in the life-sciences field. The CTA's announcement indicates the later vision was in clear focus.
Schlack said that while the center's installation is under way, KVCC will begin to develop training opportunities, internships and certifications for KVCC students, for bachelor's candidates, and for post-doctoral students interested in these emerging fields. | |
