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FOR RELEASE: Immediate, Friday, June 2, 2006

Buffalo Life Sciences Complex Opens

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thumbnail of Governor Pataki addresses more than 600 people at the opening of the Buffalo Life Sciences Center     thumbnail of Governor Pataki (center) leads federal, state, and local officials in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.     thumbnail of The entrance to the Buffalo Life Sciences Complex.     thumbnail of Another view of the Buffalo Life Sciences Complex.

BUFFALO – Western New York’s medical research industry opened a new chapter today as Governor George E. Pataki and other officials cut the ribbon to open the University of Buffalo’s Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute Center for Genetics and Pharmacology. The Dormitory Authority provided construction project management services for the new buildings within the $110 million project budget.

Together with the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, the three buildings make up the Buffalo Life Sciences Complex – and the chance for Buffalo to make its mark on high-tech research into treatments for cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and other diseases.

The Buffalo Life Sciences Complex merges high-end technology, including supercomputing and visualization, and creates a powerful combination of technologies and research expertise that is fostering advances in science and health care. The Center will work on development of diagnostics and therapeutics related to neurodegenerative diseases, anti-infectives (including those to combat pandemics), and inflammatory diseases like cardiac, stroke, and obesity.

“This official opening represents another major milestone in our efforts to transform Buffalo and Western New York into a world-class center for research and development of the life sciences,” Governor Pataki said. “The Buffalo Center of Excellence is an unprecedented collaboration – led by the University at Buffalo, and includes the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the Hauptman-Woodward Research Institute and the Hunter James Kelly Institute – that will serve as a catalyst here in Western New York for further ground-breaking medical research.”

The adjoined buildings are on Virginia Street on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The Dormitory Authority will supervise construction of an overhead pedestrian bridge across Ellicott Street to link the UB and RPCI buildings to the Hauptmann-Woodward building.

The four-story Center for Excellence is designed for UB and its partners for supercomputing for analysis of huge volumes of biological data, commercialization of new products, drug design, workforce development and three-dimensional visualization facilities. It also contains state-of-the-art technology, including nanomedicine clean-room facilities, humidity-controlled robotics laboratories, X-ray crystallography facilities, parallel- and high-performance computing and visualization capabilities that allow 22 trillion computational operations per second. Two hundred researchers and support staff will work in the building.

Today’s announcement also includes the initiation of the Hunter James Kelly Research Institute within the Center, a partnership between UB and the Hunter’s Hope Foundation, which was established in 1997 by Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Buffalo Bills Quarterback Jim Kelly and his wife, Jill, after their infant son Hunter was diagnosed with Krabbe leukodystrophy, an inherited, fatal, nervous system disease. The research institute coordinates all research funded by Hunter’s Hope, to find new treatments for children with multiple sclerosis, stroke and other diseases in which there is white-matter destruction of the brain.

The five-story Roswell Park Cancer Institute Center for Genetics and Pharmacology is host to two world-renowned scientific teams, representing the best in cancer genetics research and new cancer drug development. The building will accommodate more than 200 employees, as well as 24 research group laboratories to support key scientific resources including DNA genomics, gene expression/Affymetrix, cell analysis and biopolymer, and a 150-seat auditorium.

Governor Pataki proposed creation of Centers of Excellence in 2001 to invigorate the state economy through creation of high-technology research centers. The Buffalo center is one of five Centers of Excellence statewide focusing on critical emerging high-tech fields, including the Albany Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics, the Greater Rochester Center of Excellence in Photonics, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems, and the Long Island Center of Excellence in Wireless Internet and Information Technology. To date, the five Centers have attracted $3.1 billion in private-sector investment in partnership with $900 million in state assistance.

The Dormitory Authority’s construction team was led by Director of Construction Administration James Gray, Project Manager Michelle Paris and Field Representative Kenneth Abram. The Dormitory Authority is working with Roswell Park and project architect Francis Cauffman Foley Hoffman on the design for completion of the fourth and fifth floors. The Authority is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) status from the U.S. Green Building Council. If granted, the Buffalo Life Sciences Complex will be one of only a few laboratories in the nation to earn LEED certification.

This was the Authority’s first project using a CM-at-risk contract, under which the construction manager, Turner Construction Co., guaranteed a maximum price and held the construction contracts. If costs exceed the maximum, the construction manager absorbs the difference.

Federal, state and private-sector funding supported the Buffalo Life Sciences Center. Total investment is now nearly $320 million, including the $61 million for the new facility and $80 million in state resources for Roswell Park, the Hauptman-Woodward Institute and the Hunter James Kelly Research Institute, $120 million in corporate partner investments, $27.75 million in federal aid and $30 million in foundation grants. The Buffalo Center of Excellence’s private-sector partners include Hewlett-Packard, General Dynamics, Dell, Stryker, Informax, Pfizer, Invitrogen Corp., Cognigen, TATA Corp., HealthCare Tech Inc., General Electric, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Corning, and IBM.

Also participating in the ribbon-cutting today were U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodman Clinton, State Sen. Dale M. Volker, State Assembly Majority Leader Paul A. Tokasz, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, UB President John B. Simpson, and Dr. David C. Hohn, President and CEO of Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

“Together, we are taking critical steps toward two vital goals,” said UB President Simpson. “We are working together to build a strong, vital economic future for our region and state. We are working together to improve the quality of life of our global community through groundbreaking approaches to the study, prevention and treatment of disease.”

Dr. Hohn said, “This state-of-the-art research complex brings together a life-sciences ‘brain trust’ that is focused singularly on developing new treatments and new ways to prevent illness. We owe a debt of gratitude to our elected officials and the community for their financial support and advocacy.”

For more information, contact Press Officer Claudia Hutton at (518) 257 3382, or CHutton@dasny.org. To read the Governor’s press release, go to http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/06/0602061.html . For more information on the University of Buffalo, go to www.buffalo.edu , and for more information on Roswell Park Cancer Institute, visit www.roswellpark.org . For more information on the Hunter’s Hope Foundation, visit www.huntershope.org .