So far the Biotechnology Center's Oliver Smithies Faculty Recruitment Grants program has invested $11 million on behalf of state taxpayers. With that money, the state's research universities have brought 53 world-class bioscientists and nearly $381 million in additional funding to North Carolina.
Success stories from the recruitment program are below.
- In 1987, the Biotechnology Center recruited a group of seven researchers to start the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's molecular biology and biotechnology research program. Among them was Oliver Smithies, D.Phil., who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2007. Read more about Smithies' research online.
- Jeffrey L.C. Wright, Ph.D. is the Carl B. Brown Distinguished Professor of Marine Science at the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Center for Marine Science. At the time of his 1999 recruitment, Wright was a member fo the Royal Order of Canada and had discovered more than 100 compounds, applicable to improving human health and sustaining the shellfish industry. Wright coordinates UNCW's marine biomedical/biotechnology program and is part of HABLAB, which studies and mitigates the effects of harmful algal blooms.
- Anne-Marie Stomp, Ph.D. was recruited to NC State University in 1986 for her expertise in forestry research. She later took an interest in duckweed - a plant that grows significantly faster than trees. Her research created protein-production technology that was licensed to Biolex Therapeutics. Biolex has brought in $113 million in further venture and partnership funding, including a $100,000 loan from the Biotechnology Center.