News

$5.7 million infrastructure boost for University's Bio21 Institute

Media Release, Tuesday 28 January 2003

Powerful new facility to advance drug discovery.

The University of Melbourne is poised to become a major player in drug discovery as it prepares to build Australia's most advanced protein NMR centre.

The Minister for Innovation, the Hon. John Brumby MP today gave the centre a boost by announcing $5.7 million in State Government funding to purchase what will be Australia's most powerful Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer, an 800MHz that will put Victoria and Australia at the forefront of biotechnology research.

The new 800 MHz NMR instrument will be purchased with funds from the Science and Technology Innovation (STI) program linked with the Bio21 Project Agreement, following endorsement by the Scientific Advisory Council and Board of Bio21 Australia Limited.

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Gilbert welcomed the State Government's funding for the NMR project which he said reflected the Government's continued support for the State's biotechnology effort, through the Bio21 Institute and the overall Bio21 project.

The NMR Centre will be located in the University's new $95 million Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute (Bio21 Institute). The centre will house seven high performance NMR spectrometers, including the new 800 MHz instrument. The instruments will be used to image candidate drugs, pesticides and their biological targets.

The new Centre will complement other recent platform technology developments, particularly the protein pharmaceutical research programs based on the Australian Synchrotron Facility, currently under development by the Victorian Government

"Together with the Joint Proteomics facility developed by WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) and the Ludwig Institute, the Centre will be part of Australia's largest and most advanced functional proteomics complex, attracting Australia's leading protein pharmaceutical NMR researchers," says Bio21 Institute Director, Professor Dick Wettenhall.

"The Centre is a unique research facility that will help put the University, its Bio21 partners and the wider Victorian research community to the forefront of drug discovery opportunities arising from the ongoing genomics revolution," he says.

"It will also provide a valuable resource for medical diagnostics, the identification of toxins and the development of agriculturally and environmentally important pesticides."

The University's Bio21 building is currently under construction and is expected to be operational in early 2004. The building will have linkages with the Institute's Research Transfer/ Business Incubator Facility (the first stage to be located within a refurbished former CSIRO building on the site and the University's Royal Melbourne Hospital Clinical School and School of Veterinary Science.

The industry-focused Research Transfer Facility (RTF) is an important contribution by the University to Victoria's biotechnology commercialization and technology transfer strategies. Participants in the RTF will have access to the range of Bio21 Institute platform technologies, including the NMR facilities which have already attracted considerable industry interest and are the basis for a number of ongoing R&D collaborations and contract research programs. Industry participation is expected to increase substantially following the installation of the 800MHz NMR instrument