WEHI opens Bundoora Biotechnology Centre

Australia's oldest medical research institution, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, has made a major move into the biotechnology arena with the opening of its AUD$27.5 million Biotechnology Centre.

The new Centre, located at the LaTrobe R&D Park in Bundoora, provides facilities for a number of platform technologies for drug discovery and development including high throughput chemical screening, medicinal chemistry, functional genomics of malaria and monoclonal antibody production, in addition to incubator space for spin-off companies commercialising research from the Institute.

WEHI director Prof Suzanne Cory said the centre would enhance the Institute's capacity to move its basic research discoveries further along the R&D pipeline.

"Fundamentally we are a basic research organisation and will always remain so," Cory told Australian Biotechnology News recently. "But we're interested in the fruits of development for health care outcomes. You can't separate basic from applied research; it's all part of the pipeline. Our role is at the basic end."

Funding for the new facility came from a variety of sources including US organisation Atlantic Philanthropies, other philanthropic organisations and WEHI itself. In addition $2.06 million from the State government-funded Bio21 initiative was provided to fund 50 per cent of the automated equipment in the high throughput screening facility.

Between them, the high throughput screening facility and the medicinal chemistry group are a unique addition to a research institution that will give researchers at WEHI, as well as at other research organisations, the opportunity to identify small molecule compounds useful for research and development of potential therapeutics.

The high throughput chemical screening facility is the only one of its kind in a public research institution in Australia. It has two major screening systems, a Perkin Elmer MiniTrak system capable of rapidly performing simple, linear assays, and a custom-designed system based around the Zymark Mini Staccato which allows complex biological assays, including cell-based assays, to be performed in a sterile environment in an automated fashion (see breakout).

The $1 million Zymark system was developed by Melbourne biotech equipment company Advanced Labs, in collaboration with WEHI researchers.

"We believe this is the most sophisticated and flexible drug screening system in the world," says Peter Robert, director of Advanced Labs. "We developed the system to suit The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's exact specifications, in collaboration with the leader of the drug screening team, Dr Ian Street."

As many as 30,000 compounds can be screened per day using the system, and WEHI has already built up a library of more than 100,000 compounds carefully selected to represent useful chemistries as broadly as possible.

Street said at least ten screens would be performed per year in the facility.

The major role of the medicinal chemistry group will be to take the leads generated by Street's HTP screening facility and develop them into more drug-like or useful compounds.

Also at the new facility are WEHI's two spin-off companies -- MuriGen, a genomics company that identifies molecular targets to enable the discovery of drugs to treat major human diseases; and Genera Biosystems, which has developed a fully integrated testing system for rapid DNA analysis.