State funding for biomedical-research projects benefits four CNY campuses

Four Central New York college campuses are benefitting from about $900,000 in funding for six biomedical-research projects that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today.

The funding is for projects that the State University of New York (SUNY) Health Network of Excellence supports, Cuomo’s office said in a news release.

The state is awarding the first round of funding to projects at nine SUNY campuses and their partners in the private sector researching causes, treatments, and cures for diseases and brain disorders.

The campuses include Upstate Medical University, Cornell University, SUNY Cortland, and Binghamton University, according to the governor’s news release.

SUNY created the Health Network of Excellence, one of five networks throughout SUNY, to “engage and maximize” the system’s diverse strengths in biomedical research.
  The state awarded each of the projects about $150,000, the governor’s office said.

In one such project, Upstate Medical University, Cornell University, and three others are developing a clinical integrated-data repository (CIDR) of electronic-health record data that all SUNY campuses providing clinical care generate.

The project seeks to position SUNY as a “leader” in healthcare “big data” research, Cuomo’s office said.

Upstate Medical University is also working with Cornell University, SUNY Cortland, and two others on a project that will create a “rapid and highly sensitive,” hand-held biosensor platform to advance clinical health care and accelerate diagnosis and detection of human neural pathologies including stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, and traumatic brain injury.

Besides those projects, Upstate Medical University is also teaming with three other schools in establishing the SUNY Network Aging Partnership (SNAP).

SNAP will coordinate collaborative research across SUNY’s four medical universities to facilitate competition for scientific funding, accelerate publication of research projects, and recruit and mentor trainees.

The state also awarded funding to a project that Cornell University, Binghamton University, and two others are working on to develop a new 3D printing technology for custom manufacturing of soft tissues used in organ transplantation.

The two additional projects did not involve campuses from Central New York.

SUNY Health is one of five SUNY Networks of Excellence established within the last year to increase research collaborations and spur commercialization activities between SUNY and industry partners in core research areas.

The others are SUNY 4E (Energy, Environment, Education, Economics), SUNY Brain, and SUNY Materials and Advanced Manufacturing, and SUNY Arts and Humanities.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com