GAMING

BioAdvance, the Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania, today congratulated the Greater Philadelphia Bioinformatics Alliance (GPBA) on its successful 2nd Annual Bioinformatics Retreat and its accomplishments in its first year of operations. The Bioinformatics Alliance is a unique collaboration between academic institutions and industry to advance the life sciences through bioinformatics, the combination of biology with computational tools and information technology. The goal of bioinformatics is to more rapidly translate the vast amounts of research data generated by advances in biomedicine into life-saving therapies. BioAdvance has taken a leadership role in helping to organize the Bioinformatics Alliance, whose founding partners include eight major universities and medical research centers in southeastern Pennsylvania. Bioinformatics draws on expertise from a number of disciplines including biology, chemistry, medicine, computer science and engineering, and promotes a greater understanding of the biology of whole systems, from individual cells to patients. In its first year, the Greater Philadelphia Bioinformatics Alliance achieved a number of significant accomplishments, including securing grants and other commitments of more than $3.7 million to fund bioinformatics and computational biology initiatives in the region. Funding was received from federal agencies, from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and from BioAdvance. Particularly notable was a prestigious Partnership for Innovation award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) providing a $600,000 grant for the Alliance's educational and collaborative programs. The 2nd Annual Bioinformatics Retreat, held on October 15th at Penn State Great Valley, provided academic and industry scientists the opportunity to exchange ideas and showcase the region's bioinformatics research talent. It included a panel discussion with participants spanning a variety of perspectives, from bioinformatics entrepreneurs and intellectual property experts to early-stage venture capitalists. This group explored how bioinformatics and computational biology can be successfully commercialized in the region. "Panel members agreed that bioinformatics and computational biology are core to creating and advancing the next generation of therapeutic and diagnostic technologies," said Gary J. Kurtzman, M.D., managing director and chief operating officer of BioAdvance. "We believe the Alliance's public- private consortium approach has great promise for speeding the development and dissemination of the advanced bioinformatics capabilities needed to identify improved treatments for important diseases and to further strengthen our region's position of life sciences leadership." "The Retreat provided us a unique opportunity to bring people together from academia and industry, helping them to make research connections and to raise awareness of the vast expertise in bioinformatics available to them in this region," added Susan Davidson, Ph.D., co-director of the GPBA and Weiss Professor, Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. The Greater Philadelphia Bioinformatics Alliance established a number of programs in its first year of operation. These include: * The Virtual Institute for Professional Training providing a variety of educational programs to ensure that the region's large population of life sciences workers is skilled in leading edge bioinformatics tools and techniques. The Virtual Institute hosted a series of five week-long bioinformatics programs for scientists and researchers over the summer. * The Alliance for Training in Bioinformatics partners with member universities, research institutions and regional life sciences companies to place graduate-level interns in real-world workplace settings. The program has already placed a number of interns in university and industry labs and anticipates expanding the program in the coming year. * The Computational Orchestra is designed to catalyze and capture innovation in bioinformatics. The primary "instruments" of this orchestra are education and coursework focusing on applying a wide variety of statistical, modeling and computational skills to solve real-world biomedical problems. The Computational Orchestra currently is sponsoring a nine-week seminar series taught by prominent bioinformatics scientists from Alliance member institutions and from outside the region. "The depth of topics covered at the Retreat reinforce the Alliance's progress in just one year toward our goal of building a nationally recognized bioinformatics center of excellence," said Aydin Tozeren, Ph.D., co-director of the GPBA and Professor and Director, Center for Integrated Bioinformatics, Drexel University. "This includes our significant progress in developing substantive links between computational biology specialists at academic research centers and at pharma and biotech firms, as well as the successful launch of our Virtual Institute programs that are ensuring we have bioinformatics-savvy industry workers prepared for the demands of this new era in research." The founders of the Greater Philadelphia Bioinformatics Alliance include BioAdvance, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Fox Chase Cancer Center and The Wistar Institute. Background: BioAdvance was established in 2002 with $33.8 million from the Commonwealth's share of tobacco settlement monies to accelerate the creation of life sciences businesses and jobs in southeastern Pennsylvania. BioAdvance is accomplishing this goal through its key funding program, the $20-million Greenhouse Fund, linking entrepreneurs to the region's wealth of resources and with public-private initiatives like the new BioAdvance Ventures, L.P. fund. BioAdvance has selected 17 start-up companies and university-generated technologies for Greenhouse investments. For more information about BioAdvance, please visit http://www.bioadvance.com/.