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BioPark in West Baltimore Gets Research Center As First Tenant

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

A University of Maryland School of Medicine research center, the first tenant at the new biotechnology park in West Baltimore, could help foster collaboration between faculty and researchers and private entities, officials said.

The Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases - formed last year with the recruitment of a team of researchers from the American Red Cross - moved into the so-called BioPark on West Baltimore Street last month.

The center, one of six organized research centers at the medical school, will have three core scientific programs - vascular biology and stroke, vascular physiology and hypertension, and immunity and inflammation. Research could help advance knowledge about cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases, such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune diseases.

Center Director Dr. Dudley K. Strickland said the center, with 70 to 80 employees, will work with some of the university's clinicians. Facilitating collaboration between scientists and physicians has historically been difficult, he said.

That collaboration is one of the primary goals of the BioPark at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, which opened its first building last month and has a number of tenants preparing to move in.

The purpose of the BioPark is to try to help bring new medical technologies to the marketplace, said Jim Hughes, vice president of research and development for the university. Our faculty comes up with wonderful ideas, but we need, in most cases, companies to help commercialize those. By co-locating our faculty and companies, the collaboration is much easier.

Strickland said some of the researchers are already involved in small companies.

The idea is that we develop intellectual property, and this intellectual property may lead to the forming of small companies. It's attractive to me that we can have that sort of infrastructure around there, said Strickland, a professor of surgery and physiology at the university. A lot of universities are starting to do this now, to sort of capitalize on their intellectual property with the idea of attracting small businesses in to develop small programs.

Hughes said the center's location in the BioPark could become a tool in attracting companies as the facility expands.

A lot of companies [are] aware of the ideas, talent and resources available at the university, but it can be difficult to access those long distance. So the companies are moving in so they can have access to the faculty. That's what distinguishes what we're doing from a typical industrial park, Hughes said.

So far, the companies leasing space have identified collaboration with the university as their top priority for a location, Hughes said.

The Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases moved to the BioPark's first building last month. Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories Ltd. has leased the top two floors of the building and Hughes said about six smaller companies have signed or plan to sign leases. Hughes expects to break ground on the second of eight buildings in the fall.

Source: The Daily Record (Baltimore)

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