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Kalamazoo Gazette - Kalamazoo, MI - A Kalamazoo Valley Community College life-science center is getting a $331,692 boost from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, officials announced Friday.
This is the first-time the nearly three-year-old Michigan High Throughput Screening Center has received federal dollars, which U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R- St. Joseph, formally presented this morning.
The center is a contract-research laboratory that offers high-tech, drug-discovery services to large pharmaceutical companies, academic researchers and small bioscience firms across the country.
It is based at the college's Michigan Technical Education Center in Texas Township.
"We had not received federal funds before. So we worked with Congressman Upton's office and he was able to get this grant," said James DeHaven, the college's vice president for economic and business development. "It must be used for equipment, but it's great for us. We didn't need any more physical expansion of the room. We just needed to get more robotics equipment."
Researchers at the center use specialized robotics equipment and a library of compounds to probe for breakthroughs in diseases such as cancer, malaria, heart disease and diabetes.
KVCC provided an initial nearly $2.2 million to build and equip the center's laboratory in 2005. Pfizer Inc. contributed $600,000 in equipment and area foundations also provided funding.
The college has continued to provide support for operational costs, but in the upcoming fiscal year the center will be financially self-sufficient for the first time, DeHaven said.
KVCC, according to college officials, is the only community college to offer these kinds of not-for-profit services.
KVCC officials named Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin and Rutgers University as some of the major universities that also do this type of work.
For more information, contact Kathy Johnson (kjohnson@kvcc.edu) or phone 269-353-1560.
If your organization needs access to expert assay development and HTS services without IP issues, or if your company would like a chance to review one of the most diverse compound libraries on the market, contact us.
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July 2006 - MHTSC Named Finalist for Innovation Award
June 2006 - New Alliance Formed November 2006 - MHTSC Update
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