Bioplatforms Australia partners on 4 of the 16 successful ARC Industrial Training Centre’s and Industrial Transformation Research Hubs announced today. This is indicative of the dependence upon deep biological analytics in contemporary scientific discovery and testament to the deliberate efforts of Bioplatforms Australia’s strategy to promote biological analytics for translating discovery to commercial outcomes.
The ARC Industrial Training Centres (ITTC) and Research Hubs are aimed at fostering close relationships between university-based researchers to provide innovative Higher Degree by Research and postdoctoral training relevant to industries vital to Australia’s future. The scheme offers an excellent opportunity for cutting-edge research to be directed towards developing new businesses, improving products and even preparing entire sectors of the economy for future challenges. Bioplatforms Australia will lend infrastructure and expertise across research on genomes, proteins and cellular metabolism to enable this translational research in the ITTC’s awarded including: The ARC Training Centre for Facilitated Advancement of Australia’s Bioactives led by Macquarie University; the ARC Training Centre for Accelerated Future Crop Development led by the Australian National University; the ARC Training Centre for Next-Gen Technologies in Biomedical Analysis led by The University of Western Australia and the Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Supercharging Tropical Aquaculture Through Genetic Solutions led by James Cook University.
Two of these share an underlying theme in the emerging discipline of Synthetic Biology whereby biological elements or systems are engineered to produce a bespoke functionality. Synthetic biology is a platform technology which utilises high throughput robotics and computational aided design to produce revolutionary new materials, sustainable pest control and farming practices and precision medical therapies. The field has attracted enormous investment internationally with private investment reaching US$4.6 billion in Q1 of this year. Bioplatforms Australia has embraced synthetic biology as part of its strategy to best support the innovation ecosystem of Australia and is adding a Genome Foundry to its technical service offering as part of a $8.3m investment from the Commonwealth Government through NCRIS.
“It is through these schemes that industry and spin out companies can take risks to explore high-tech solutions to their value proposition without the heavy capital burden of acquiring specialised and expensive laboratory equipment” says Bioplatforms CEO Andrew Gilbert, “Our job is to ensure access to world-standard facilities and expertise for academic researchers, start-ups and established industry.”