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