Translational Center Is Poised for Partnerships

The Advanced Technology Research Facility (ATRF)—a state-of-the-art, 330,000-square-foot translational research facility opening this summer in Riverside Research Park in Frederick, MD—will bring together scientists now scattered among 33 mostly World War II-era buildings at the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR). The new facility initially will house about 250 researchers.

With hopes of further advancing its mission to speed the translation of basic research to therapies for cancer and AIDS, the facility has reserved about one fifth of its space for partners from industry, academia, and the nonprofit sector to share while collaborating with scientists from the NCI and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). SAIC-Frederick is the private contractor that operates FNLCR, and it provides technical support as well as scientific services that range from performing basic research to running clinical trials.

“The idea is to have partners working shoulder to shoulder with NCI and SAIC-Frederick scientists,” says SAIC-Frederick CEO David Heimbrook, PhD. “They can use our know-how to advance their mission, and they’ll ideally bring new techniques and ideas to our scientists.”

So far, Medigen, Inc., of Frederick, a biotechnology company specializing in cancer vaccines, has signed a letter of intent with ATRF. Medigen president and chief scientific officer Peter Pushko, MD, says that the ATRF partnership would provide access to specialized equipment and animal models that could further the company’s development of a prostate cancer vaccine.

The partnerships are meant to be transient, time-limited missions focused on a specific goal, an arrangement that helps foster the natural evolution and change inherent to scientific discovery, says Heimbrook. While the partners might return to their home base after their contract ends, they might decide instead to spin off a small group to relocate nearby to seed a more durable partnership.

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