'Big, bodacious idea: Duke to open Biomarker Factory at NCRC to raise funds

Monday, April 27, 2009 3:06 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend |

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

CHARLOTTE — Duke University will open a business incubator called the Biomarker Factory at the N.C. Research Campus.

The new initiative will occupy a large portion of Duke's future building in downtown Kannapolis and will encompass the MURDOCK Study, Duke's groundbreaking medical project named for campus founder David Murdock.

While still in the planning stages, the Biomarker Factory should serve as Duke's major contribution to the $1.5 billion Research Campus, said Victoria Christian, chief operating officer for the MURDOCK Study and Duke Translational Research Institute.

"It's a big, bodacious idea that we think is very executable," Christian said Tuesday at the Charlotte Biotechnology Conference.

The Biomarker Factory will raise money to help fund the MURDOCK Study, which is expected to cost millions of dollars and last for decades.

"We will generate our own intellectual property," Christian said.

The factory also will do fee-for-service work for outside firms, she said.

The Biomarker Factory will include a nonprofit institute, a for-profit contract research organization and several commercial partners, Christian said. She described it as a place where a diverse group of laboratory, clinical, molecular, epidemiological and bioinformatics experts work toward collective goals.

Christian named LabCorp as a potential partner. LabCorp is already collaborating with Duke on a 45,000-square-foot high-tech storage facility for blood samples, currently under construction in Kannapolis.

Duke is in discussions with additional companies interested in collaborating on the Biomarker Factory, Christian said.

"There is a lot of enthusiasm," she said.

Researchers affiliated with the Biomarker Factory in Kannapolis and around the world will work to understand the underlying path of disease and develop new therapies, Christian said.

A biomarker is a biological molecule found in the body, often in blood or tissue, that signals disease. Biomarkers also can show how well the body responds to treatment.

While the University of North Carolina System opened two buildings on the Research Campus last week, one dedicated to nutrition and another to agriculture, the purpose of Duke's future building has remained a mystery.

Murdock reserved a prime spot near the Core Laboratory for Duke when he gave the university $35 million last year to launch the medical study.

Christian said they will break ground soon.

For planning purposes, she said the Biomarker Factory could occupy 30,000 square feet of a 100,000-square-foot building. Multiple tenants would lease space in the facility, she said.

Murdock's development company Castle & Cooke North Carolina will construct the building, Christian said. Whether Duke would enter into a lease-to-own agreement with Murdock, like the state has for the UNC System's buildings, has yet to be determined, she said.