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€34 Million Centre Planned for Dublin City University to Drive Medical Research
Dublin City University is developing a €34 million centre for its National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology, (NICB). The new NICB building, funded by the Higher Education Authority under the PRTLI programme, is expected to open in 2005 and will provide state-of-the-art laboratory facilities to house the NICB’s core facilities and research programmes.
Dr. Don Thornhill – Chairman of the Higher Education Authority, turned the sod for the new building today, during an ‘Open Day’ held to highlight the research activity of the Institute.
Speakers at the Open Day were:
- Dr. Reg Shaw who has spearheaded the construction of Wyeth, Biopharma campus in Clondalkin – the largest biopharmaceutical plant in the world.
- Professor John Crown, Consultant Medical Oncologist – St. Vincent's Hospital, who has revolutionised the cancer clinical trial environment in Ireland since his return from the USA.
- Dr. Kevin Scanlon from California, expert in the biopharmaceutical industry and President of the International Society of Cancer Gene Therapy
- Professor Owen Ward (Prof. of Microbial Biotech. - University of Waterloo, Canada)
- Dr. Don Thornhill (Chairman – Higher Education Authority)
- Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski (President – Dublin City University)
- Professor Martin Clynes (Director - National Institute of Cellular Biotechnology)
The NICB is dedicated to the development and application of biotechnology research in areas such as cancer, diabetes, developmental biology, anti-microbial treatments, biocomputing, bioprocess engineering and communication of biotechnology. NICB’s research spans a wide range of disciplines across three locations – The Institute of Technology Tallaght, NUI Maynooth and Dublin City University
The research programmes at the Institute transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and include a significant number of integrated multidisciplinary collaborations, involving for example biological testing of new chemicals, development of novel diagnostic antibodies for microbial diseases and communication of biotechnology.
The programmes focus in particular on research which may lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of cancer, microbial infections and diabetes and an understanding of how the cell and molecular biology of animal cells impacts on their use for production of biopharmaceuticals.
In areas such as cancer and diabetes research, NICB has made unique contributions to the national biomedical research effort. For example, for the first time in Ireland, a new discovery based on laboratory cell biology research has been taken all the way to a cancer clinical trial also in Ireland. A network of international strategic research alliances has been established, including one with the University of Miami to help develop expertise in pancreatic islet cell culture, which has significant potential for eventual application to diabetes treatment in Ireland.
The NICB has already contributed significantly to new undergraduate and postgraduate teaching initiatives in the three partner institutions and has established itself as an important resource for training for Irish industry, and as a research partner for the biotechnology industry. A significant cell and molecular biology research partnership has been established between NICB and Wyeth’s Irish and U.S. laboratories.
Welcoming the HEA funding for the new centre, Professor Martin Clynes, Director of the NICB, said the critical mass of expertise put together with the HEA’s PRTLI Cycle 3 funding had acted as a base on which other funds could be used to establish critical mass of international scale. “Already, additional competitive funding has been secured by NICB scientists from sources including Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland, Cancer Research Ireland and industry.”
Professor Clynes said that if the potential of major research initiatives like NICB was to be realised for the long-term future of research in Ireland, a major challenge needed to be addressed to build on the major PRTLI and SFI investments in research to provide continuity of funding. “We also need to move from the present semi-feudal employment conditions in Ireland for research scientists. No other profession would accept the current employment structure which young Irish research scientists, currently accept. The structure is exploitative and unstable, and will militate against establishment of the cadre of full-time career researchers which Ireland needs if it is to become a world-class player in research,” he said.
Research projects highlighted during the Open Day included one concerning diabetes treatment which involves engineering replacement cells to produce insulin for sufferers of Type I diabetes. The second project highlighted concerns cancer therapy and is an NICB research programme which has progressed onto clinical trials in association with St. Vincents Hospital. It is the first ‘translational’ research clinical trials to be registered in Ireland. (Translational research is the link from "bench to bedside" and creates a bridge between basic scientific research such as that carried out in the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology (NICB) at DCU and clinical treatment such as that conducted by Dr Crown and his team at St Vincent's).