Life Science Research Lab Takes Shape

The Life Sciences Research Laboratory (LSRL) at 15th and Wakarusa, formerly occupied by Oread Laboratories and purchased last year by the Kansas University Center for Research, is taking shape as a focal point in new life sciences research efforts by the university.

The recent award of a $10 million NIH COBRE IDeA grant for cancer research has allowed two COBRE Cores to be created, the High-throughput Screening Laboratory and the Combinatorial Chemistry Laboratory. A portion of the newly established laboratory space at LSRL will be devoted to these two COBRE cores. Dr. Gunda Georg, the Director of the Drug Discovery Program at the HBC's Center for Neurobiology and Immunology Research and University Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry is the principal investigator (P.I.) of the grant.

The High-throughput Screening Laboratory will screen complex chemical libraries from existing libraries of compounds and from libraries prepared by the Combinatorial Chemistry core to identify and improve bioactive compounds. Several research projects in the COBRE grant will use the facility to further their research. Drs. Richard Himes and Robert Palazzo have been instrumental in setting the stage for the operation of the COBRE core.

The laboratory will run under the direction of Dr. Qi-Zhuang Ye, who was recently hired to open the facility and begin working with professors at KU, Kansas State University and the KU Medical Center. Dr. Ye, a graduate of the Medicinal Chemistry Department at KU, developed high-throughput screening facilities at Idun Pharmaceuticals and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was also previously employed at Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals.

The other core, the Combinatorial Chemistry Laboratory, under the leadership of Drs. Georg, Paul Hanson and Lester Mitscher, will provide medicinal and combinatorial chemistry support for COBRE projects and for the High-throughput Screening Laboratory by preparing targeted libraries of compounds for screening and lead optimization, synthesizing compounds, and providing extracts from natural products. This core will also be responsible for acquiring compound libraries from various resources, such as the National Cancer Institute, plant-derived extracts, and extracts from a collection of 400 myxobacteria species housed at Emporia State University, one of the collaborating universities on the COBRE grant. In addition, Dr. Mitscher and postdoctoral research associates of Drs. Hanson, Jeffrey Aubé, and Helena Malinakova will use the laboratory in their research efforts for the KU COBRE grant, the Kansas University Medical School COBRE grant, and for future grants, pending their approval.

Matching monies from KU Center for Research, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of Pharmacy and Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation were used to purchase the equipment for the High-throughput Screening and Combinatorial Chemistry Laboratory. In addition, all of the COBRE grant investigators at KU, KU Med Center and KSU received funds from these matching monies for equipment purchases for their own laboratories.

The Co-P.I.'s of the COBRE research projects are the following: KU: Drs. Kathy Suprenant, Sandy Quackenbush, Roland Seifert, Paul Hanson, and Erik Lundquist; KSU: Drs. Scott Todd and Paul Baures; and KU Med Center: Dr. Kathy Roby.

The two core laboratories and the associated administrative space will provide cutting-edge research facilities and faculty collaboration space for the growing life sciences research effort in Kansas. In an effort to provide an atmosphere in the facilities that will be conducive to such collaboration.

Dr. Georg has spearheaded a cooperative effort with Kay Boehr, Lecturer in the Design Department at KU. A group of Ms. Boehr's second year design students took on the task of preparing interior designs and decor schemes for the office space in the building complex as one of their class assignments. While this offered them the opportunity to work for a "real client" with real problems, it also challenged the scientists to think about their workspaces with a different perspective as they met with the students to describe their wishes and needs. Six student teams recently presented their design proposals to the scientists who plan to occupy the offices and to university administrators who are coordinating the move.

The students were highly commended by all who attended for their fresh ideas and themes for the office space, interesting color schemes and innovative room plans and furniture choices. Dr. Georg hopes to include some of the ideas in a remodeling proposal for the building.