Billionaire gives $20 million to UQ, Foundation gives $3.3 million to cancer projects

If Queensland Premier Peter Beattie fulfils his ambition of appropriating Victoria’s mantle as the Biotech State, he will be indebted to itinerant Brisbane resident Chuck Feeney.

The Irish-American billionaire, who has been credited with playing a key role in transforming Ireland’s economy over the past two decades, has made another $20 million donation to University of Queensland – this time towards the cost of constructing the university’s new, $60 million Brain Research Institute.

Feeney had previously made two similar but anonymous donations through Atlantic Philanthropies, towards the cost of building the university’s new Bioscience Precinct, which includes the new Institute of Molecular Bioscience, and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology,

His latest donation brings his total investment in major biotech infrastructure on the university campus to more than $60 million, according to UQ Vice-Chancellor, John Hay.

The Brain Research Institute’s Director, Professor Perry Bartlett, says Feeney has almost single-handedly leveraged a similar amount of money from the Queensland State Government into the biosciences.

“Chuck Feeney likes Australia so much that he lives some of the year in Kangaroo Point, in Brisbane,” Bartlett said.

“He has always offered the donations on the basis that the State Government has to match them.”

The new institute will cost around $45-$50 million to construct, which Bartlett says will leave around $10 million to recruit new staff.

The institute already has 100 staff, and the new building will eventually accommodate 300.

Last year Bartlett relocated his entire neuroscience research group to Brisbane from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute – Bartlett’s team is famous for discovering that the brain contains a population of neural stem cells that renew its tissues, and which may be involved in creating new neural networks.

He says the new staff will be hand-picked. Some will come from within the university, which has a strong psychology, psychiatry and neurology research community, while others will be recruited from elsewhere in Australia and overseas, particularly in Asia.

“The Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne has become a neuroscience institute, so Australia will have two dedicated institutes for neuroscience research,” he said.

“The new institute will allow us to put together large multii-disciplinary teams of cellular and molecular biologists, electrophysiologists and other specialists to tackle basic questions relating to cognition, brain plasticity and brain disease processes. We’re going to work from the bottom up.

“It’s a terrific time to develop networks with other big neuroscience institutes in our region, in places like Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo and Kyoto. We plan to exchange postdoctoral researchers.

“South-east Asia and Asia are really starting to become heavyweights in neuroscience. From our viewpoint, it’s much easier to network with institutions in similar time zones, and to travel north-south, rather than east-west.”

Barlett said much of the credit for Queensland’s emergence as a powerhouse in Australian bioscience belonged to Premier Peter Beattie. “He’s very passionate, very bright, and really understands what bioscience can do for the state’s economy.

“The high cost of living in Melbourne and Sydney makes it difficult to recruit bright young scientists, so you’re just reshuffling people when you build new buildings.

“Brisbane is a much cheaper place to live, so there are no problems recruiting scientists from elsewhere in Australia and overseas.”

Foundation gives $3.3 million to cancer research projects

UQ’s Institute of Molecular Biosciences (IMB) today became one of three recipients of the largest research grant yet made by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF)

ACRF Chairman Tom Dery announced that the Foundation will provide $3.3 million for three major cancer research projects at the IMB, Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and Sydney’s Garvan Institute.

IMB Director Professor John Mattick said the institute would use its $1.2 million grant to establish a Dynamic Imaging Facility for Cancer Biology, headed by professor Alpha Yap.

The new facility will have advanced microscopes that will allow researchers to visualize the complex chemical messages involved in cellular communication, to observe cell motility and differentiation, and to study the effect of drugs on cancerous cells.