The Atlantic Philanthropies leads USA delegation to QLD

A vision to more rapidly translate health research into breakthrough medicines for patients is the driving force behind talks held this week between Queensland’s ‘Smart State’ medical research institutes and one of the world’s top medical research universities.

A delegation from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) this week toured a number of Brisbane’s medical research and technology facilities at the invitation of Founding Chairman of The Atlantic Philanthropies, Mr Charles ‘Chuck’ Feeney.

The Chancellor of UCSF, Professor Susan D Desmond-Hellmann, and the Director of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), Mr Mark Laret, spent three days touring Queensland ‘Smart State’ research facilities that have benefited from the support of The Atlantic Philanthropies.

The Atlantic Philanthropies has provided more than $AUD500 million in funding to Australia in the past 13 years, including in excess of $AUD250 million to Queensland. This support has helped build or expand 20 research facilities in Australia (13 in Queensland), with a built value of more than $AUD1.5 billion.

The tour included a visit to the construction site of the new $345 million Translational Research Institute (TRI), which received $50 million from The Atlantic Philanthropies and will be the first in Australia and the largest institute of its type in the southern hemisphere — and one of only a handful worldwide that can research, trial treatments and manufacture breakthrough drugs in one location.

TRI CEO and Research Director, and 2006 Australian of the Year, Professor Ian Frazer, discussed future collaboration opportunities with Professor Desmond-Hellmann during her visit.

TRI will draw together 650 researchers from its four partner institutions at the new facility to be located on the Princess Alexandra Hospital campus in Woolloongabba. The TRI partner institutions are: The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Queensland University of Technology’s Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation, Mater Medical Research Institute and the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Centres for Health Research. DSM Biologics will also be offering world-class contract manufacturing services combined with a leading edge bio-processing solution for mammalian biopharmaceutical products at TRI to assist in the translation of research.

During the visit, The University of Queensland – in association with The Atlantic Philanthropies – hosted a presentation by Professor Desmond-Hellmann to a select group of Queensland medical researchers and policy makers, titled ‘Health Sciences Innovation in the 21st Century’ on Monday, 29 August 2011.

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University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Translational Research Institute, and University of California are Atlantic grantees.