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The Discovery Ridge Research Park is located on MU’s
South Farm and is a joint project of MU and the University
of Missouri Office of Research and Economic Development.
ABC Laboratories will be the first tenant.
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Discovery
Ridge:
‘Where science Goes to Work’
It’s as simple as ABC. The University
is launching central Missouri’s first research park on a
site at MU’s South Farm. It’s called Discovery
Ridge, and the park’s first partner will be a research
firm with longstanding ties to Mizzou.
Analytical
Bio-Chemistry Laboratories Inc., also known as ABC Labs, was
founded nearly 40 years ago by MU biochemistry Professor Charles
Gehrke and two graduate students. At a May 12 ceremony at South
Farm attended by many state, local and University officials, the
contract research and development company announced that it will
move its corporate headquarters and laboratories to an 11.5 acre
site that it will lease at the new research park.
ABC Labs will anchor future research ventures
that will move to the 114-acre Discovery Ridge. Calling ABC’s
move “a homecoming,” University of Missouri System
President Elson Floyd said it highlights the importance of creating
critical mass.
“Companies like to cluster together,
and universities and government can provide the environment in
which companies can thrive and gain from mutually beneficial opportunities,”
Floyd said.
“The University of Missouri stands
ready to form more partnerships like this one bringing together
state and public and private enterprise for the benefit of all
parties and for the people of our incredible state.”
Discovery Ridge “is a symbol of how
universities can partner with the private sector and provide great
dividends for the people of Missouri,” said Gov. Matt Blunt.
“It really is a milestone as we watch the paradigm shift
that is under way at the University of Missouri and other institutions
across the state as they become more fully engaged in economic
development and research partnerships.”
Chancellor Brady Deaton pointed out that MU’s
national reputation for fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations
made such an initiative possible. “Discovery Ridge represents
an unparalleled partnership in the evolution of this state’s
relationship to the University. It illustrates the power of partnerships
that will mark the future of our great university,” Deaton
said.
“We pledge ourselves to continuing that
pathway that will really, truly create the ideas that will shape
the future of Missouri, the nation and indeed the entire world
as that scientific agenda unfolds.”
U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond
recalled that as Missouri’s governor in the 1980s he supported
the University’s request for additional state funding to
establish MU’s Food for the 21st Century research program,
which has since achieved national prominence.
“We really didn’t know what was
going to happen at the time,” Bond said. “We’ve
had a tremendous explosion in the last 10 years in life sciences
research. The good news is that the Food for the 21st Century
program had been bringing some of the leading scientists in the
world here who were already doing it.”
Now, the big challenge is to move those discoveries
from the research lab to the marketplace, Bond said. “Missouri
is the perfect place for the science to make that leap from the
university — from the laboratory — to Main Street.
“The research park attracts companies,
the companies create new jobs, and those jobs go on to create
other jobs with a ripple effect that benefits our entire economy,”
he said. “The partnership between universities and businesses
can provide answers to age-old problems of hunger, sickness, malnutrition
and poverty. Scientific advancements in biotechnology are already
feeding the hungry and healing the sick.”
U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, who helped secure federal
funding for a new interchange on Highway 63 that will provide
access to Discovery Ridge, cited the importance of providing the
necessary infrastructure to support economic development.
He also applauded the University’s role in developing the
new research park.
“Like so many things that are going on that are good in
Missouri and indeed around the country, it is the result of a
partnership at the hub of which is the modern research university,”
Talent said.
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Last Update:
November 15, 2007
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