The state's new Life Sciences Center awarded its first round of research and development grants yesterday and announced that the state's new stem-cell registry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School will be ready to open next month.
The developments were announced at the first meeting of the board of the Life Sciences Center since the state approved a plan to invest $1 billion in life-science development over the next 10 years. The center is charged with overseeing the distribution of $250 million in life-science research grants, $250 million in life-science industry tax incentives and $500 million in infrastructure projects to promote stem-cell research, biomedical and biopharmaceutical research and industrial expansion.
Each of the studies for research projects at universities and research centers were titled with equally technical descriptions. The research grants offer applicants up to $100,000 annually for up to three years.
Mr. Schonhoff, a researcher and assistant professor who received his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, explained yesterday that he will be researching how bile is produced in the liver and the effects of nitric oxide in bile formation. He said it is aimed at shedding new light on bacterial infections involved in liver disease.
The newly reconstituted and expanded seven-member board of the center, made up of three state officials and four life science industry representatives, also approved $3.5 million in “new faculty startup grants” to help attract and retain top scientific talent in the life science field to the state's leading colleges and universities.
Those grants were awarded to Boston University, Brandeis University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, UMass — Boston and UMass — Lowell. Those grants require a one-to-one match for up to $250,000 annually for up to three years.
Susan Windham-Bannister, the recently named CEO and president of the state center, laid out her priorities and plans at the meeting for “a very aggressive ramp-up plan” aimed at making the agency “fully functional” within the next year.
She told board members yesterday she expects the stem-cell registry at UMass Medical School should be ready for an opening sometime in August.
The registry will provide Massachusetts researchers, commercial entities and the international biomedical research community access to an international database on ongoing research on stem-cell lines and research findings on stem-cell lines. It is being developed in conjunction with a physical stem-cell bank at the medical school that will store stem-cell lines from major stem-cell research centers here in Massachusetts and from other research and medical institutions, and provide them to researchers around the world.
Ms. Windham-Bannister said her hope is to make sure the state gets a reputation for being “friendly” to the life-science industry and expand the state's life-science industry's international profile. She said the next two months will involve finding office space and filling out what she intends to be a “small but highly qualified” senior staff that will include herself, Melissa Walsh, who was named yesterday as the agency's chief operating officer as well as a chief financial officer, general counsel, program development officer and a research and evaluation officer.
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