Amgen Foundation Makes $2,000,000 Gift to Establish Bioprocessing Center at KGI
The Amgen Foundation has announced an extraordinary gift of $2,000,000 to provide start-up funds for the Amgen Bioprocessing Center at Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. This new facility will be used to educate students about the commercial development and production of biological molecules that have the potential to provide life-changing and life-giving therapies for diabetes, cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular and infectious diseases.
The Amgen Bioprocessing Center at Keck Graduate Institute will serve as a national model for combining academic and applied research in one campus-based facility. By bringing “real-world” challenges into the academic environment, the Center will provide hands-on experience in bioprocess engineering and in project management for KGI’s Master of Bioscience students. The Center will also provide a rare educational opportunity for undergraduate engineering students from Harvey Mudd College, one of KGI’s fellow institutions in the Claremont University Consortium.
“This exciting new collaboration with Amgen is a great complement to our entrepreneurial culture and revolutionary model for teaching and applied research,” said KGI President Sheldon Schuster. “Our innovative Master of Bioscience (MBS) professional degree helps meet California’s - and the nation’s - need for future leaders who are fully grounded in science and technology, together with management, ethics, and industry economics. This new Center is an incredible asset to us in preparing our students.”
KGI also fosters an entrepreneurial spirit in applied research that has already resulted in over 50 patents and two spin-off companies. The new Amgen Bioprocessing Center will complement KGI’s existing core facilities in genomics, proteomics, tissue culture and computational biology and offer KGI’s MBS and PhD students unparalleled access to the advanced technologies that drive innovation in the life sciences. “The potential benefits to society are numerous. One critical example is the role the Center can play in aiding small companies which might not otherwise have access to the resources and facilities needed to prepare their innovative therapies for clinical trials," says T. Gregory Dewey, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty and Robert E. Finnigan Professor of Applied Life Sciences. “Our students will now gain valuable practical experience in the development and manufacture of biological products. As KGI graduates assume leadership roles in the companies producing the new enzymes, antibodies, vaccines and other pharmaceuticals of the future, they will make significant contributions to improvements in human health and well-being.”
The Amgen Bioprocessing Center at Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences offers great promise as a model for the simultaneous development of new generations of both scholar-researcher-entrepreneurs and life-enhancing products based on biologics, proteins products with enormous potential for treating some of our most serious diseases from HIV to cancer, diabetes, and arthritis.
Contact: Elizabeth Power Robison, 909/607-8787, robison[at symbol]kgi.edu