Advanced Technology Partnerships Initiative Moving Off the Fort

There is a nice article in the FNP business section today about NCI hooking up with SAIC to look for a new 7.5 acre site to build a new facility to house the Advanced Technology Partnership program.

According to the Article (read the whole article HERE):

SAIC-Frederick looks for site to house partnership
Originally published September 25, 2008

By Clifford G. Cumber
News-Post Staff

A partnership seeking to deliver cutting-edge cancer research and potentially life-saving treatment more speedily to sufferers has signed its first agreements.The program, called the Advanced Technology Partnerships Initiative, was created in 2007.

Matt Zustiak, a development engineer in the Late Process Sciences group of the Biopharmaceutical Development Program, part of SAIC-Frederick Inc. at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, operates a 1,000-liter GMP cell culture bioreactor.

The National Cancer Institute has asked SAIC-Frederick to search the county for a roughly 7.5-acre building site to house the new partnership close to the organizations’ local headquarters at Fort Detrick, said Frank Blanchard, director of public affairs with SAIC-Frederick.

The campus, expected to be commissioned by 2010, will house research and development laboratories, biopharmaceutical development facilities and office space.

NCI and SAIC are searching for partners among nonprofits, private businesses, government and academia with which to collaborate. Organizations that take part will be housed together at the campus, “with the sole goal in mind of getting cancer treatments to cancer patients sooner, and hopefully less expensively,” Blanchard said.

I also wanted to direct your attention to the following photo from Zero Gravity, taken at SciFoo in August:

Maybe you see me twice, courtesy of Photoshop, but it’s still a cool picture (click to enlarge).