Smart State funding focuses on personalised medicine

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced today at the 2011 BIO International Convention being held in Washington DC that the Queensland State Government will invest $2 million in The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Centre for Advanced Imaging.

The funding is part of the Queensland Government’s new round of Smart State funds to strengthen the state's research capacity.

UQ Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Greenfield, said the Queensland State funding will go towards establishing an international-class research facility that will support major research into disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease, stroke, arthritis and cancer.

“Advanced imaging is integral to earlier diagnosis and to personalised, patient-specific treatments for diseases that cause high levels of disability and distress in Australia,” Professor Greenfield said.

The Queensland investment is in support of a $40.2 million grant awarded to UQ to expand the National Imaging Facility under Round 3 of the Commonwealth Government’s Education Investment Fund (EIF). The total value of the project is approximately $107 million.

"The funding will help to place Australia at the forefront of research in medical imaging" Centre for Advanced Imaging Director, Professor David Reutens, said.

"The Centre will house flagship instruments such as Australia's first combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and the nation’s first ultra high-field 7 Tesla human MRI machine – one of only a few in the world.”

The scanners will allow researchers to take pictures of molecules in living organs in humans and animals. This investment complements previous Queensland Government support for imaging research and for the National Imaging Facility.

Professor Greenfield, who is at BIO 2011 in Washington DC, gave the government credit for continuing to invest in high-quality research during tough fiscal times.

In addition to the $2 million for UQ’s Centre for Advanced Imaging, the Queensland Government also announced funding to the below UQ-based facilities:

• $1.5 million to the Queensland Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF-Q) to provide researchers throughout Australia and overseas with state-of-the-art fabrication facilities and expertise for patterning of polymer and glass substrates for drug delivery, and fabrication of nanoelectronics. ANFF-Q facilities are located within UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) and Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics; and Griffith University.
• $1 million to the Australian Mirror of the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) Data Facility located at UQ, which gathers, stores, analyses and integrates biological and genetic information, which can then be applied to gene-based drug discovery and development.
• $2 million to the Queensland Cyber-Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) towards the next phase development in a super-computing facility. QCIF is a consortium of Queensland universities, which is based at UQ’s St Lucia campus, and was formed with the objective to increase the State's innovative capacity through deployment and exploitation of advanced computing and communications infrastructure - supercomputers, high-capacity data archives, visualisation and networking capability.

Other 2011 BIO International Convention announcements
The Queensland Premier also announced that UQ is undertaking discussions with the USA Navy about developing advanced biofuels that can power ships, jet fighters and landing craft. UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) already has a project underway for the production of bio-derived jet fuel.

UQ’s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) is also part of the proposal to produce biofuels for the US Navy. QAAFI last week signed a research agreement with Clemson University in the USA to collaborate on biofuel research.

UQ PhD student Mr Tobias Smith from the School of Biological Sciences has been awarded a 2010-2011 Queensland-Smithsonian Fellowship to investigate the diversity of bees and flower flies in rainforests areas in the tropics.

Media: Kathy Grube, 0418 524 297