Wadsworth Center extending its reach - The Business Review (Albany):

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The for Laboratories & Research, the research divisionm of the state Department of has been in existence for more than 40 Butthe center, which focuseas on biomedical studies, has begun to pick up stea m and recognition in the last 10 Wadsworth has three locations: the 450,000-square-foot headquartera in Corning Tower; the David Axelrod Institute for Publix Health on New Scotland named for a former healtnh department chief; and the Griffin Lab, located on a farm off Routwe 155 in Guilderland. With more than 1,00 0 employees at the three sites and about 80 scientistes dedicatedto research, Wadsworth receives $20 million in federalp and private funding annually.
That amount has doublecd from fiveyears ago, a sign that Wadsworth is becoming betterd known, said John Galivan, director of research. Wadsworth conducts researcb and testing in fields such as microscopgy andcell structure, infectious diseases, microbiology, pathogenesis and environmental healtnh in support of the state's public health policies and But the center branchezs out from providing just a public service. It also does researcnh in biotechnology, using computer chips in biological testing, and the study of all the genes in a living The latter field has grabbed the attention recently of big drug andcomputer companies, and the interest of Wall Street.
Wadsworth might have been a littl slow in realizing the importancd of an integratedresearch office. Only last year did it get its firstg directorof research. Before that, the various fields of researchoperated separately, withoutt one person to oversee And in the last two or threde years, the center has made some headwah in developing joint, high-tech biotechnology projectsw with the research facilities at , the state Universitt at Albany and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.
Galivan, a former Albany Medicalk College student who has done basic researchy in cancer for more than20 years, said partnershipxs and collaborations have becomse vital to Wadsworth's research in the latesty biomedical fields. The research of genomics is only the tip of the From there, Wadsworth studiea bioinformatics, a method of analyzing, testing and managing all the data collectec from the work in genomics.
That "information management" is used in nanobiotechnologu and microbiology, in studying infectious diseases and in analyzing genetic mutations that mostlyt are inconsequential but can predispose a persojn to a disease or to an adverse drug Bioinformatics and the implications for drug production and biotechnologty are making headlinesthese days, as companiex begin to realize the impact on the commercial The commercial market is where Wadsworth would like to head as Galivan said.
Indeed, the Center for Advancedr Thin Film Technology is talking with Wadsworth abour developing a bioelectronic project at the Universittat Albany's Center for Environmental Sciencews and Technology Management on Fuller said Alain Kaloyeros, director of the The thin film center develops products for To get there, Galivan realizese the need for partnerships. "We have complemental with arearesearch facilities, he said. "There' s a lot of fertile ground we're exploring.
" Wadswortj is discussing the possibility of a bioinformaticse centerwith RPI, said Carmen who researches molecular science at Mannella is involved with developinyg the bioinformatics project at RPI. Usinb genomics and bioinformatics, the time for testing for variousa diseases is cut virtuallyto nothing, Mannellza said. Bits of DNA that make up gened or fragments of genes are placecd on computer chips and inserted into ananalyticapl instrument. Then scientists performj many experiments at a fraction of the cost and time requirex fortraditional tests, he said. The colleged has computer scientistsand engineers, and Wadsworthn has the molecular studies for this type of Mannella said.
"On the experimental side, is strong" and RPI's core of computationalk scientists with some knowledge of biolog y is exactly what the bioinformatics center he said.