Ten-year funding commitments from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) to programs at Cornell University, as announced June 30 by Governor George E. Pataki, will help the university's basic-research and technology- transfer efforts in the life and material sciences to emphasize regional economic development, as well as business and job creation.

The governor also announced a new name and enhanced mission for Cornell's 20-year-old New York State Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) in Biotechnology with a 10-year, $1 million per-year commitment to the redesignated Center for Life Science Enterprise at Cornell University.

In addition,Cornell researchers will be active participants in the Future Energy Systems CAT awarded to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) by focusing efforts in the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) on research and development and more job opportunities in fuel cells, "smart displays," and "smart lighting."

"Economic development and technology transfer have always been fundamental goals of the CAT, along with supporting new initiatives in basic research," said Stephen Kresovich, director of the Life Science CAT at Cornell, "and we're proud of our record. More than 200 patents and 28 companies have grown out of this targeted research." Kresovich pointed to a well-known example: The so-called "gene gun," which was invented by Cornell scientists, developed with support from the Cornell CAT and originally manufactured by a New York start-up company on the way to becoming one of the standard tools in biotechnology.

As the Cornell CAT shifts emphasis to economic and workforce development, basic research funded by innovation grants will continue to be a critical part of the mission, in order to provide new "platform technologies" that R&D specialists can cultivate in the marketplace, explained Margaret Arion, executive director of Cornell CAT. She noted one requirement of the NYSTAR designation of university-based CATs — that institutions must show matching funding (from corporate, governmental, and institutional sources)and those sources will help support basic research,she said.

Said Russell W. Bissette, MD, executive director of NYSTAR: "Cornell University's Center for Life Science Enterprise will be an extremely important component of the state's high-technology economic development efforts. With the research in the life sciences, enabling sciences, and agricultural sciences being done at this center, coupled with technological research in a wide range of areas, Cornell will be a key partner in helping create a vibrant high-technology-based economy for New York state."

—Roger Segelken, Cornell News Service