Bio21 ramps up

Melbourne's Bio21 project looks to be back on track with a restructured board, a newly approved business plan and orders in for some key new equipment.

New Bio21 board chairman Prof David Penington said there had been considerable activity behind the scenes to boost the development of the biomedical cluster, most recently symbolised by the approval of the precinct's five-year business plan by Victorian Treasurer and Innovation Minister, John Brumby.

A scientific advisory council has also been established with Nobel Laureate Prof Peter Doherty at the helm.

In addition to being named chairman of the new advisory council, Doherty has also been named to the Bio21 board, joining University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Prof Alan Gilbert, Melbourne Health chairman Prof David Karpin and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) director Prof Suzanne Cory.

The scientific advisory council will also include the University of Melbourne's Dean of Medicine, Prof Richard Larkins, as the deputy chairman.

Dr Stella Clark, formerly general manager of the University of Melbourne's School of Graduate Studies, has been appointed Bio21's executive officer, and started with the organisation on Monday.

Construction of the new Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, which commenced earlier this year, is scheduled to finish in early 2004. Adjacent to the institute, a former CSIRO building is currently being renovated to become the Bio21 Business Incubator, and is expected to be ready for operation early in 2003, according to Bio21 Institute director Prof Dick Wettenhall.

Wettenhall noted that a business plan for the incubator facility was being developed and would be released shortly. It was expected that approximately 70 per cent of the 2200 square metre facility would be available for use by start-up companies, with another 20 per cent going to anchor tenants with potential to add value to the incubator and the remaining 10 per cent as short-term space for external visitors to the precinct, he said.

"We have a boutique mix of advantages at Bio21 that some companies will be interested in," said Wettenhall. He noted that start-up companies would probably be restricted to two years in the facility with the possibility of extending residency into a third year if special circumstances warranted it, while anchor tenants would be able to negotiate a longer lease.

There have already been a number of expressions of interest by companies, he said. As for the new institute, groups from the university as well as the other members have sought space in the 22,000 square metre building, which will house platform technology facilities and research laboratories. Wettenhall said that about 50-60 per cent of the building would be occupied by university researchers selected for their relevance to the biomedical aims of the Bio21 project.

In addition, an order has been placed for a state-of-the-art 800 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy instrument with German manufacturer Bruker, Penington said. The facility will be located at the new institute, in a specially constructed underground facility. And WEHI is in the process of developing its new high-throughput chemical screening facility at the WEHI Biotechnology Centre in Bundoora.

The other component of the precinct's trio of platform technologies, proteomics, has already been established with the opening of the $12 million Joint ProteomicS Laboratory (JPSL) in July.

The Bio21 precinct is also looking for new members in addition to its three founding members. Penington said that invitations had been issued to a number of institutes and organisations to join Bio21, including the Howard Florey Institute for Experimental Physiology and Medicine, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, the Austin Medical Research Institute, St Vincent's Institute for Medical Research and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, as well as the Victorian College of Pharmacy.

A number of other organisations, including several Melbourne hospitals, the Cancer Council of Victoria and Neuroscience Victoria as well as CSIRO Health Science and Nutrition have also been approached as possible associate members.

"We are engaged in discussions with several groups at the moment," Penington said.

The benefits offered by joining Bio21 went beyond the shared platform technology facilities, he said, to include the possibility of joint collaborative projects and submissions for further Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) infrastructure funding from the State government.

Bio21 will also work closely with other research facilities around Melbourne, including the synchrotron facility under construction at Monash University, Penington said.

Other plans for the precinct include a Comprehensive Cancer Centre, which is in the early stages of development, and increased involvement in clinical trials, possibly through Clinical Trials Victoria, a consortium that received STI funding earlier this year.

Penington said that the whole point of the Bio21 precinct was to forge links between the biomedical and clinical research expertise centred in Parkville, as well as with the biotechnology industry and the wider community who stood to benefit from advances in science and medicine.

"I think it will be a very vigorous cluster of different groups... able to move in the international research arena," he said.