Biotechnology Center Supports
North Carolina’s Marine Research
By Jim Shamp
News & Publications Editor
The 21st century challenges of sustainably feeding and fueling the world have created historic opportunities for biotechnology and marine science.
Today, they’re two of the most competitive and significant sectors worldwide. Nations, regions, states, and agencies are working to develop capabilities, build on existing resources, and craft strategies to wade into those waters.
Fortunately, despite this growing competition, North Carolina has the world’s first and oldest targeted biotechnology initiative: the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, established in 1984.
During the ensuing 24 years, the Biotechnology Center has learned and led on many issues and strategies of biotechnology development. Today it is judged a leading international model for creatively funding and strengthening North Carolina’s rich biotechnology community.
But the Biotechnology Center’s leadership also recognizes a key imperative: the world’s leading biotechnology communities can remain in the lead only by increasingly developing innovative partnerships for scientific, commercial, sector, and policy outcomes.
Two decades of state commitment and $200 million in systematic funding have ensured that biotechnology is firmly a part of North Carolina’s policy, landscape and seascape – indeed, its future.
A Strong Biotech Foundation
The evidence of success is clear. By varied measures, North Carolina is judged the third-leading state for biotechnology in the United States, with more than 450 life science companies establishing research, testing or production operations in the state, employing some 55,000 people. A high percentage of companies are home-grown and entrepreneurial, springing from research and technology transfer at the state’s leading public and private universities.
And a growing number of these firms will, in coming years, arise from the marine science "decking" that’s being interlocked in coastal Carolina and connected statewide, with the Biotechnology Center and other partner organizations providing financing and organizational support.
"Opportunities abound for North Carolina to build on our potential in marine biotechnology to improve people’s lives," says John Chaffee, director of the Biotechnology Center’s Eastern regional office in Greenville, which includes the state’s northern coastal region in its service area. "And the Biotechnology Center is committed to turning those potential opportunities into jobs and prosperity."
"Research in marine biotechnology is introducing us to a whole new set of untapped commercial opportunities from renewable natural resources," adds Randall Johnson, director of the Biotechnology Center’s Southeastern regional office in Wilmington.
Both these Biotechnology Center executives point specifically to marine researchers from the Carteret County campuses of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Carteret Community College and Duke University, as well as Brunswick Community College and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. These scientists, increasingly with help from the Biotechnology Center, are exploring aquatic life as a source of new products in healthcare, bioremediation, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, alternative energy and other industries.
Investing in Marine Research
North Carolina State University professor Dr. Michael Stoskopf, for example, was approved in 2006 for $160,000 in Institutional Development Grant funding from the Biotechnology Center for the North Carolina Marine Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Facility in Carteret County.
Carteret Community College Title III Director Dr. Donald Staub landed a $29,500 Regional Development Grant last year from the Biotechnology Center to explore the feasibility of establishing a marine biotechnology incubator in coastal North Carolina. It’s aimed at helping to build capacity for the MSEP as it seeks economic development opportunities in the region.
And so far in 2008, Duke’s Dr. Thomas Schultz won a $236,800 Institutional Development Grant from the Biotechnology Center to establish a molecular genetic core facility at the Duke University Marine Lab. The funding will enable high-throughput sequencing and genotyping as the lab seeks genetic and molecular approaches to conserving North Carolina’s precious marine resources.
By policy and strategy, the Biotechnology Center aggressively targets development of specific sectors now or increasingly important to a state varied in resources. It will, by 2012, establish at least six multi-party Centers of Innovation (COI), designed to move ideas from the research lab to the marketplace. One of the first has recently been funded, a $100,000 Phase I planning grant to explore the feasibility of a COI in marine biotechnology.
In addition, the Biotechnology Center has led creation of the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, a state-funded institution based in Oxford, and designed on the Biotechnology Center model. America’s only agency directed to comprehensive development of all aspects of a biofuels endeavor, it will guide the state to an aggressive goal: production of some 600 million gallons of its own liquid fuels from cellulosic and other non-food resources by 2017. Algae and marine resources are likely to play a key role in the state’s biofuels future.
Increasing collaborations are becoming obvious among marine science researchers at the state’s top universities through such programs as MARBIONC (Marine Biotechnology in North Carolina), the 3-year-old program sponsored by the state and federal governments aimed at commercializing technologies in the region.
Collaborating to Build Strength
As part of MARBIONC, UNC-Wilmington established the "Business of Biotechnology" program to develop business-savvy scientists by offering marine science post-doctoral fellows the opportunity to earn a Master of Business Administration at UNC-Wilmington’s business school.
UNC-Wilmington has also helped to fund researchers through fellowships at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke. These fellows have produced a kit to detect bacterial pathogens in oysters and new food formulations for fish mariculture.
Dr. Daniel G. Baden, UNC-Wilmington’s William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Sciences and director of the Center for Marine Science, is leading research into the use of about 25 marine toxins to diagnose and treat a variety of ailments and diseases. Baden and his colleagues are collaborating with AAIPharma, a Wilmington-based pharmaceutical services company, to clinically test a cystic fibrosis therapy. A start-up company, World Ocean Solutions, has been formed to bring the research to the marketplace.
In November 2006, the Biotechnology Center sponsored Bluefields: Collaborating for Stronger Aquaculture in North Carolina, an event that brought attendees from organizations focused on research and commercialization in all aspects of marine aquaculture to Carteret County. The event was offered again in March 2007 as part of Wilmington’s Marine Biotechnology Week in addition to Marine Biotechnology for Business Leaders, a regional life science economic development summit.
Coastal North Carolina has many assets to draw upon to grow its marine biotechnology sector. Besides its world-class universities and community colleges, costs of living and costs of doing business are far lower than those of most other competing clusters, for example.
It’s only a matter of time until home-grown marine biotechnology-based companies join the existing list of major North Carolina biotech employers.
Jim Shamp can be reached at 919-549-8889.