OSR-9450578 Ma Development of a Core Facility for Biotechnology Research The proposed activity is to establish a core facility for research and development in biotechnology at the West Virginia University Robert C. Byrd (WVU-RCB) Health Sciences Center under the current federal Good Manufacturing/Laboratory Practice (GMP/GLP) regulations. Formation of a GMP/GLP facility would be cost-intensive, but would also greatly improve research infrastructure at West Virginia University, and strongly enhance our ability to obtain research grants from both federal and industrial sources. Because such a facility consists of federally approved laboratories for product development and characterization, this facility would also have the capacity to participate in collaborative commercial ventures with private sector biotechnology companies. Due to the extensive costs associated with the establishment of a complete GMP center, the requested funding from the EPSCoR Experimental Systemic Initiative program will be used to develop a start-up facility to include: 1) a GLP laboratory to characterize chemical and biological materials, such as for quality control of starting materials and/or biotechnological products; 2) a cell culture laboratory to develop methods for cell biology research and the screening of xenobiotic biotransformation; and 3) a small-scale manufacturing facility to produce biotechnological reagents and polymeric and lipid membrane-derived systems for cellular targeting of bioactive compounds. This core facility will be used for long term stimulation of competitive research at the WVU-RCB Health Sciences Center and serves as a base for future establishment of a full GMP facility to foster biotechnological development in West Virginia. The anticipated outcome of the proposed activity is three-fold. The first is to promote multidisciplinary research by combining cellular targeting strategies, physicochemical and molecular biological methods in studies such as those included in the current proposal. The second is to establish the GMP/GLP laboratories as planned to support future development in industrial applications of biological research and technology/knowledge transfer to the private sectors. Thirdly, this core facility will be used for long term development of competitive research and funding by federal and/or industrial sources.
