Upstate Medical University, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology & National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan Create Glo...
September 08 2009 - 11:10PM
Business Wire
Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and
National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City, Taiwan, have
announced the creation of the International Institute of Biomedical
Sciences and Technology that will facilitate the collaboration of
research across three continents and accelerate the development of
novel bioengineering, diagnostic and biomedical products for the
treatment and cure of disease, officials said today.
Presidents from the three institutions (David R. Smith, M.D.,
Upstate Medical University; Yitzhak Apeloig, Ph.D., Technion Israel
Institute of Technology; Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, M.D., Ph.D.,
National Cheng Kung University; left to right) signed a
wide-ranging Memorandum of Understanding that describes how each
institution will support the global research initiative and how it
will conduct business. The areas highlighted for research
collaboration, which are still being discussed, are expected to
include cancer, infectious diseases; diabetes and cardiovascular
disease; and disorders of the nervous system. But Dr. Steven
Goodman, Upstate’s Vice President for Research and Dean of the
College of Graduate Studies, notes this decision will ultimately be
made by faculty from the three institutions.
“For a research university in the 21st century, especially one
with a strong bent in life sciences because of our outstanding
medical school and affiliated teaching hospitals, it is imperative
that we develop sustainable collaborations with medical schools in
other continents,” said Michael M.C. Lai, president of NCKU. “It is
for this reason that NCKU is proud to participate in this very
important consortium with Upstate and the Technion.”
Technion President Professor Yitzhak Apeloig stated that “the
Technion, with its strong engineering and medical faculties and its
global outreach welcomes and appreciates the great potential
benefits of this collaboration and enthusiastically supports the
creation of the new institute.”
Upstate President David R. Smith, M.D., hailed the creation of
the institute as a new era of research collaboration worldwide.
“Three distinct institutions worlds away will now join forces to
expedite new discoveries and breakthrough in medical science,” he
said. “The relationship opens our laboratories to greater
participation from the world’s premier scientists across the
globe.”
Upstate’s Steven Goodman, PhD., Vice President for Research and
Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, will serve as the
institute’s executive director and be responsible for the daily
activities of the institute. A founders board will also be created,
comprised of researchers from the faculty of the partnering
institutions. Meetings will be held annually to set direction and
long-term goals of the institution. The Institute will grow from
these three initial Founding Institutions to incorporate other
universities and medical schools worldwide.
“The creation of this cross-continent research institute
immediately brings all three campuses together in the name of
scientific discovery,” Goodman said. “The purpose of the Institute
is to bring together top scientists in the biological, physical,
mathematical, engineering and computer sciences to form
interdisciplinary teams aimed at solving essential issues in human
health and society.”
Goodman said that researchers at the three founding institutions
have expressed an interest in collaborating with others at
institutions around the globe. “Collaboration in research is not
limited to the scientist down the hall. We are breaking down the
barriers between scientific disciplines and nations to bring
together great minds around the globe to solve health problems that
require team's of researchers to solve,” he said.
The idea to create the Institute with these select institutions
grew out of Goodman’s work with Da Hsuan Feng, a Senior Executive
Vice President at NCKU who worked with Goodman at the University of
Texas at Dallas from 2001 to 2008. Both Goodman and Feng
subsequently developed a friendship with Aaron Ciechanover, M.D., a
Nobel laureate in chemistry, who serves on the faculty of Technion;
were quite interested in pursuing this global research endeavor and
brought the ideas to our respective administrations.
Upstate’s annual research expenditures near $40 million, with
significant research activity in nervous system disorders;
diabetes, metabolic disorders, and cardiovascular disease; cancer
and infectious diseases. Upstate, one of four academic medical
centers in the State University of New York system, educates and
trains research scientists, physicians, nurses and a variety of
other health professionals.
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa is Israel’s
oldest university and its leading comprehensive center for advanced
scientific and technological research. It is one of only a handful
of technical institutes in the world with a medical school,
partnering research in nanotechnology, fiber optics and other
technical areas with work in the life sciences and medicine.
NCKU is located in the ancient city of Tainan, which is
approximately 250 kilometers south of Taipei. It is connected to
all major cities in Taiwan by the recently initiated
state-of-the-art Taiwan High Speed Rail. With three quarters of a
century of distinguished history, with well over 130,000 powerful
alumni now dotting the globe, many have achieved supreme successes
in arts, business, education, science, technology and healthcare
and are ready and willing to assist, with 22,000 academic selective
students and 1200 academically significant faculty members
currently, both have healthy dosage of international flavor, with
enormous regional support, and with a permeating culture of
proactive intellectual growth on the world’s stage, NCKU in Tainan,
Taiwan, has evolved from its engineering genesis to become a
powerful comprehensive, research and international university in
Asia Pacific.
Photo:http://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/cvpread.aspx?ID=37078