Round II Research Awards

The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics is awarding $15 million in state-funded research support to nine new research teams and infrastructure support for five teams of successful applicants.

The nine research winners will share roughly $9 million and conduct research on pancreatic cancer, tuberculosis and brain tumors, as well as cardiovascular, neuromuscular and autoimmune diseases. Other projects will focus on transplant rejection, drug addiction and cancer drug development. The remaining $6 million will support equipment, software and other infrastructure needs to enhance molecular research, genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.

“We are excited by the strength of these research projects. They represent top-level science as well as a high degree of potential in the marketplace,” said Frank Cerra, M.D., Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota. “This is a clear example of how state investment in the Minnesota Partnership will make a difference for all Minnesotans — in health care and in economic development.”

The $15 million was the first installment of a state commitment to the Partnership, which leverages Minnesota’s leading medical research institutions to enhance economic development in the state. An initial contribution of $2 million appropriated by the Legislature in 2003 and augmented by another 1 million from each institution launched the Partnership’s pilot projects on Alzheimer’s disease, prostate cancer, heart disease and obesity. Those projects have already resulted in several journal articles, grant applications, a patent application and strong interest from industry.

“This second round of awards will triple the amount of research going on and help position Minnesota as a leader in this quickly expanding field of genomics-related discoveries,” said Glenn Forbes, M.D., CEO of Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “We have already accomplished much in a short time but expect even greater things from this new, larger group of excellent projects.”

Applications for the projects were requested last fall from University and Mayo researchers. Each research proposal has a principal investigator from each institution and must be a project that could not be completed by either organization on its own. The field was narrowed and then final selection was made with input from an outside panel of national experts and consideration was given to the potential commercialization potential of the research. The funding will be for two years, with the goal of developing intellectual property or attracting additional research support from federal or private sources. Similarly, the infrastructure requests had to come from a partnering team and represent a need that neither institution could meet under its existing budgets.

In total, more than $70 million in funding requests were received for the $15 million available. Partnership leaders say this exemplifies the level of research ideas that potentially could be brought forward to help Minnesota’s health and economy.

The Partnership has requested the next installment in research support of $18 million be appropriated in the upcoming legislative session. If funded at a rate of $70 million over 5 years, moderate economic projections show an impact of the Minnesota Partnership of over 4,300 direct and indirect jobs in 2010 and $319 million in revenues annually by 2010.

Collaborative research conducted as part of this next round of funding will have an advantage. The Partnership’s new genomics research facility will be completed in Rochester by the end of this year. The three-story facility on the Mayo Clinic campus will provide laboratory space for continued collaborations as well as facilities for state-of-the-art equipment for Partnership use. The building expansion was the result of $21.7 million in state bonding support.

As part of its commitment to biosciences in Minnesota, the Partnership, along with the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, is sponsoring a series of conferences around the state. Recent events held in St. Cloud and Worthington each attracted well over 100 people interested in learning how best to leverage bioscience discoveries into economic development. Other conferences are planned for later this spring in Mankato and Bemidji.

Click to view a PDF of the research team.