Interdisciplinary research is a central pillar of the new €17 million BioSciences Institute at University College Cork, writes DickAhlstrom
Biomedical research enters a new era at University College Cork with the completion of its new BioSciences Institute.
It will provide a focus for campus-based research and help achieve the interdisciplinary mix planned for the new centre.
Researchers began moving into the institute this week, according to its director and UCC professor of anatomy, Prof John Fraher. "It will be fully active by the end of the summer," he says.
It will eventually house between 300 and 400 researchers. He says: "The whole idea is that they are interdisciplinary and are drawn from a range of research labs at UCC. The interdisciplinarity is very important."
The €17 million development provides about 5,300 square metres of space on six floors. Funding came from cycle one and three of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, run by the Higher Education Authority and from an anonymous donor.
The building design is meant to facilitate the "mixing" of staff working there, says Prof Fraher. "The technology will tend to be localised on one floor but the floors don't matter."
Staff have easy movement up and down floors and laterally through the internal space, and there are two main meeting areas.
The plan is to encourage staff to meet in corridors or go for a coffee, he adds. "If they meet they start talking and serendipity applies."
The institute's name says what it will do, explains Prof Fraher. "Obviously it relates to the biomedical area, looking at diseases and the development of new treatments for diseases by understanding the biology behind them." Its range of labs will extend over proteomics, genomics, transgenics, cell physiology, microbial and cellular interactions, cell signalling, and cell and tissue structure. It will have an advanced microscopy research facility, networked to an image analysis lab.
The institute is not about research isolation, however. "It is founded on basic science", but will connect directly to applied and spin-off technologies of interest to business and for clinical discoveries in medicine.
Prof Fraher will encourage "interaction with local industry", particularly the pharmachem and biotech industries. He also plans overt links with other UCC research centres, the National Food Biotechnology Centre and the National Microelectronics Research Centre. "We obviously want to play to our strengths here."
Prof Fraher identifies five key research areas for the Institute, starting with cancer. The Cork Cancer Research Centre - now located in Cork city - will move into the Institute. The privately funded independent centre will benefit from its new surrounds and will continue studying genes and proteins that are switched on and off as a cancer develops. "The development of gene-based cancer therapies is the important area," adds Prof Fraher.
A campus-based lab studying inflammatory bowel disease and other autoimmune diseases will also relocate to the Institute. This represents a second important research area.
Food research and the linkages between food, health and well being are a third key area, says Prof Fraher. "There has always been very good interaction between the food science and biochemistry labs."
He expects this to develop its own synergy in the institute. It will look, for example, at health promoting bacteria that can help to mediate gut disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease.
Research important to medical staff is a fourth main area. "We very much want to act as the basic research outlet for clinical medicine to underpin and support research into clinical conditions," says Prof Fraher.
The fifth area is neuroscience, an important research topic for UCC.
It is a member with University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin of the National Neuroscience Network. The Cork element of this will move into the new institute and continue research into disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Prof Fraher says that the institute will provide an important training function, producing capable researchers both for industry and to continue basic research activities at UCC and universities elsewhere.
The building also has purpose-built space for visiting research teams who can come to Cork and make use for a time of its expertise and equipment. This, according to Prof Fraher, is tuned to match a visiting academic programme supported with funding from Science Foundation Ireland.