U-M Life Sciences Institute unveils two centers

May 14, 2004

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Director Alan R. Saltiel announced the establishment of two new centers of collaboration within the multidisciplinary Life Sciences Institute this morning during the LSI's Grand Opening Convocation at the University of Michigan.

"Our recruiting is going well and now is the time to begin initiatives that will really help to bring scientists together across scientific fields," Saltiel said. "These programs are at the forefront of scientific discovery and will catalyze interactions across the campus."

LSI is establishing a Center for Chemical Genomics, and a Center for Structural Biology.

The Center for Chemical Genomics (CCG) will apply the latest high-throughput laboratory technology to the search for small molecular tools that will help researchers explore living cells. These molecular tools will enable researchers to measure the cell's dynamic systems in action, relatively non-invasively. CCG tools may help discover how cells communicate, how they turn genes on and off, how they release newly-made proteins, or send broken parts to the trash can. The heart of the CCG will be a robotic lab capable of screening tens of thousands of candidate molecules for possible effects on cells. This will be a core collaboratory for LSI scientists and other U-M researchers.

The Center for Structural Biology is a critical mass of leading researchers shedding light on the very specific shapes and forms of molecules in the living cell and studying how they interact with one another in health and disease. The collaboratory is centered around a protein production facility and an x-ray crystallography suite. This facility also serves as a core laboratory for all U-M researchers interested in understanding the three-dimensional structure of proteins.

The Life Sciences Institute is a newly established research unit of U-M that serves as a hub for multidisciplinary scientific collaborations which will shape the biological revolution.