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Pioneer Valley Leaders celebrate the $3 million investment by MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute in establishing the new Center of Excellence for Apoptosis Research at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute.

The new Center of Excellence will focus on apoptosis—or programmed cell death—an essential biological process that is thought to be a causative factor in a majority of human disease. By identifying and regulating the signaling pathways involved in cell death, there is great promise to develop new medical treatment for a host of human scourges—including diabetes, Alzheimer’s Parkison’s, auto-immune diseases, and breast cancer.

The new cutting-edge research center is expected to create between 50-75 new jobs, leverage an additional $12.5 million in additional investments through foundations, federal grants and industry, and attract new companies to the region. Already, some of the economic development potential of PVLSI is being realized:

• Biomedical Research Models, Inc., the Worcester-based company that is one of the first tenants of the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, recently won a $4.9 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, to test compounds to treat Type 1 diabetes.
• Genzyme, one of the world’s leading life sciences companies, recently toured PVLSI—a direct result of an “East meets West” initiative hosted by University of Massachusetts President Jack Wilson and U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy in June 2006. The goal is to expand the linkage from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the Boston region to the excellent research and medical facilities in Western Massachusetts.

PVLSI has also created working groups around breast cancer, with researchers studying atypical mammary hyperplasia, a condition picked up by mammograms that may indicate an early warning for cancer.

PVLSI, which opened its doors in 2003, is a joint partnership between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Baystate Medical Center.  Together, the two institutions represent the top two largest employers in the region. “As we go, so goes Western Massachusetts,” said Mark R. Tolosky, President and CEO, Baystate Health, in his welcoming remarks.

The collaboration also draws on the word-class excellence of both institutions – the university’s research capabilities in polymers, computers and engineering, and the hospital’s clinical prowess, excellent pathology department, tissue bank, and teaching faculty.

In early December, the local Regional Technology Corporation convened a strategy session at Springfield Technical Community College to explore how the Pioneer Valley can carve out a strong, successful economic niche in the Commonwealth’s Life Sciences mega-cluster. Discussion focused on the possibility of creating a hub for Phase I and Phase II clinical trials in Massachusetts and on growing the emerging medical device sector in western Massachusetts by creating new products that integrated polymer engineering expertise.

“The investment in building a Life Sciences infrastructure in regions outside of Boston represents a commitment by the Commonwealth to grow the knowledge- and technology-based industries that comprise the Innovation Economy region by region, sector by sector,” said Mitchell Adams, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute, he said, has also made investments in strengthening the precision machining cluster in Springfield, and in expanding access to broadband services in under-served communities throughout Western Massachusetts.

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