Biotech partnerships key to new jobs
Professor
Andrew Parratt provides a shining example of how Deakin University is
already working with the Geelong community to help create industries and
jobs for the 21st Century.
As well as being the director of BioDeakin, Professor Parratt is also the head of BioGeelong, the umbrella organisation that includes not just Deakin University but other scientific and medical bodies like CSIRO and Barwon Health.
“Obviously Deakin University is well placed to take a leading role in helping develop biotech opportunities in the Geelong region,” Professor Parratt said.
“But the university is not the only player in Geelong’s already substantial biotech industry.
“The 300 bioscience researchers in the Geelong region bring in excess of $15 million into the local economy through their wages alone.
“There is tremendous room to expand on this for the benefit of not only organisations like Deakin, CSIRO and Barwon Health, but the whole community.”
Professor Parratt said one of the reasons he chose to work at Deakin was the university’s unique model that involves multi-disciplinary research approaches and industry partnerships.
“At Deakin our researchers don’t just stick rigidly to their chosen subjects,” he said.
“They look to colleagues in all sorts of different areas to help them find solutions.
“Deakin is always looking for partnerships outside the university, with business, with the community, with fellow research bodies.
“So I was pleased to be offered the chance to be chairman of BioGeelong as part of this policy of bringing everyone together. Chairing BioGeelong has allowed me and the group to expand our horizons on collaborations and new partnerships.
“Geelong is too small for us all to be going off doing our own thing.
“By working together, we are able to pool our resources and already we have had some remarkable outcomes from that.
“The partnership between Deakin and Barwon Health for instance, working on creating new materials to improve joint replacement, will have widespread benefit not just for Geelong, but people right around the world.
“Another
researcher, Dr Nicole Stupka, is working also working jointly with BioDeakin
and Barwon Health. Nicole is focussed on the how to we maintain good muscle
cell health during ageing or if someone is suffering from diabetes.”
Professor Parratt has also played an important role in developing Deakin’s partnerships with Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company.
“Deakin University has had an office in India for more than 10 years,” Professor Parratt said.
“We have been developing meaningful relationships with that country over a long period of time and that has given us tremendous credibility there, as the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understand with Biocon proves.
“Part of the agreement is for Deakin to become the first Australian university to set up its own Research Institute in India. They like our research model and want to replicate it there.
“The other important part is that the partnership with Biocon gives us a very real chance of winning the contract to build Australia’s first commercial protein bio-processing plant for Geelong. Producing new drugs for many human diseases.
“If our bid is successful, this will mean the creation of 100 jobs.
“I feel for the people at Ford who have lost their jobs. It is a very difficult time for them, for Ford and for some of the Geelong businesses that will suffer as a result.
“But with the support of the State and Federal Governments, if we can really push on, fast-track if you like, a lot of our plans for Geelong as a biotech hub, we can reduce that pain. Creating new advanced manufacturing – bioprocessing jobs will stimulate further jobs growth in high value niches. ”
Professor Parratt said another advantage that Geelong had was its status as a fast developing regional centre.
“If you look at successful biotech centres around the world, they are not all in capital cities,” he said.
“For a start, there isn’t
the space to build them, and where there is, the land is too expensive.
“As a community, we are fortunate that the Geelong Campus at Waurn
Ponds has enormous space in which to expand.
“To me it is a very exciting time to be involved with both BioDeakin and BioGeelong. Some fantastic opportunities are presenting themselves for all of us.”
To find out more about BioGeelong: www.biogeelong.com.au