Wadsworth Center extending its reach - The Business Review (Albany):

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The for Laboratories & Research, the research division of the states Departmentof Health, has been in existence for more than 40 But the center, which focuses on biomedicalo studies, has begun to pick up steam and recognition in the last 10 years. Wadswortjh has three locations: the 450,000-square-foot headquarters in Corninfg Tower; the David Axelrod Institute for Public Healty on NewScotland Avenue, named for a formef health department chief; and the Griffin Lab, locater on a farm off Routde 155 in Guilderland. With more than 1,00 0 employees at the three sites and about 80 scientists dedicatefto research, Wadsworth receives $20 milliobn in federal and private fundingf annually.
That amount has doubled from fiveyeares ago, a sign that Wadsworth is becoming betterf known, said John Galivan, director of research. Wadswortj conducts research and testing in field s such as microscopy andcell structure, infectious microbiology, pathogenesis and environmental healthb in support of the state's publicc health policies and practices. But the center branchess out from providing just a public It also does research in using computer chips inbiological testing, and the study of all the genes in a livinb organism.
The latter field has grabbeed the attention recently of big drug andcomputer companies, and the interest of Wall Wadsworth might have been a littlse slow in realizing the importance of an integrated researcg office. Only last year did it get its firsrt directorof research. Before that, the varioue fields of researchoperated separately, without one person to oversee And in the last two or threer years, the center has made some headway in developingt joint, high-tech biotechnology projects with the research facilitiese at , the state University at Albany and Rensselaee Polytechnic Institute in Galivan, a former Albany Medicao College student who has done basic researchy in cancer for more than 20 said partnerships and collaborations have become vital to Wadsworth's researcjh in the latest biomedical fields.
The research of genomics is only the tip of the From there, Wadsworth studiesd bioinformatics, a method of analyzing, testing and managing all the data collectedx from the work in That "information management" is used in nanobiotechnology and microbiology, in studyint infectious diseases and in analyzing polymorphisms, genetic mutations that mostluy are inconsequential but can predispose a person to a diseases or to an adversed drug reaction. Bioinformatics and the implications for drug productionn and biotechnology are making headlineswthese days, as companiees begin to realize the impact on the commerciall market.
The commercial market is where Wadsworth wouldf like to headas well, Galivah said. Indeed, the Cente r for Advanced Thin Film Technology is talkingh with Wadsworth about developing a bioelectroniv project at the Universityat Albany's Centerf for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management on Fuller said Alain Kaloyeros, director of the The thin film center develops productas for commercialization. To get there, Galivan realizes the need for partnerships. "We have complemental strengths" with area researcn facilities, he said. "There's a lot of fertile grouned we're exploring.
" Wadsworth is discussing the possibility of a bioinformaticz centerwith RPI, said Carmen who researches molecular science at Wadsworth. Mannellaz is involved with developing the bioinformatics projectat RPI. Using genomicsa and bioinformatics, the time for testing for various diseasexs is cut virtuallyto nothing, Mannellas said. Bits of DNA that make up gene s or fragments of genes are placedx on computer chips and insertec into ananalytical instrument. Then scientistss perform many experiments at a fraction of the cost and time requirefd fortraditional tests, he said.
The college has computer scientistdand engineers, and Wadsworth has the molecular studiese for this type of work, Mannellaz said. "On the experimentak side, [Wadsworth] is strong" and RPI's core of computationalp scientists with some knowledge of biology is exactlyy what the bioinformaticscenterd requires, he said.