On July 12, 2006, the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LIAI) and Gemini Science Inc. celebrated the grand opening of their new facility at Science Research Park, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Adjacent to the East Campus Medical Center complex, the center is the first occupant of the Park that is to eventually host five such buildings.
The grand opening ceremonies included a reception and featured speakers including San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, UCSD Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences Edward Holmes, and the presidents of LIAI and Gemini Sciences Inc., Mitchell Kronenberg and Kazuo Kawamura.
“I think what we’re doing here today is celebrating an important occasion in the advancement of science and advancement in [the] fight against infectious diseases and cancer and immune system disorders, such as allergies and Type 1 diabetes,” said Kronenberg, Ph.D., who is also the LIAI scientific director.
He further described the 16-lab/230-employee institute as one of the leading immunology institutes in the world.
With a new, large building located next to the leading immunology community at UCSD, LIAI hopes to expand its faculty and overall research of emerging diseases such as SARS, the flu, West Nile virus and many others.
“[We are] very interested in studying both the beneficial and detrimental aspects of immune system response,” Kronenberg said.
LIAI and Gemini Science Inc. work collaboratively in a contract research agreement that lasts until 2010. This profit/nonprofit partnership stems from one of LIAI’s founding goals ” to partner with a Japanese company.
Researchers at LIAI benefit from the funding of Gemini Science Inc., but they work on their own independent research projects. In turn, the employees at Gemini benefit from the close proximity to world-renowned immunologists and disease specialists. UCSD owns the land, Gemini owns the lease to the building and LIAI possesses knowledge of immunology/infectious diseases ” all factors that contribute to an elaborate research collaboration in Science Research Park.
The goal of Science Research Park is to attract companies and research institutes that will synergize with academic efforts on campus. Many of the scientists in Science Research Park are already adjunct faculty members at UCSD and many will become adjunct faculty members during their tenure. Science Research Park researchers also benefit from their close proximity to the UCSD Moores Cancer Center.
Current research at LIAI includes an NIH appointed project ” a database of immunology information.
Steve Wilson, Ph.D., and co-principal investigator of the database, said, “[The] database itself is a collection of the literature from the entire field of immunology. [We are] distilling it down to datapoints that you can then use as pieces/building blocks for computational models.”
These models simulate the way an immune response might behave in the body and researchers can use this knowledge to improve vaccines.
A day of celebration marked the beginning of the blossoming partnership between industry and academia, all centered around Science Research Park at UCSD.