HARBOR BRANCH - OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
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GOVERNOR BUSH TO HELP LAUNCH NEW OCEAN DRUG DISCOVERY CENTER

Dania Beach, Fla. -- On Tuesday, Sept. 23, Governor Jeb Bush will be the keynote speaker at the launch ceremony for the Florida Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology, to be held at Florida Atlantic University's SeaTech facility at 101 North Beach Road in Dania Beach from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As a major partner in the new $10 million Florida Atlantic University-headed program, the HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution will be expanding and improving its world-class ocean drug discovery program.

The Center of Excellence will combine the expertise of HARBOR BRANCH and FAU as well as Florida International University, Nova Southeastern University, the Smithsonian Marine Station at Ft. Pierce, and several private companies. The overall goal for the new center is to promote the discovery, development, and commercialization in Florida of new medicines and other products.

At HARBOR BRANCH, funding through the center will support training of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and new submersible expeditions to search for organisms that produce chemicals capable of fighting cancer, Alzheimer's, or other diseases. The institution will also be able to purchase critical equipment to improve its ability to analyze potential new drugs.

"We're really pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this joint program and to help build the marine biotechnology industry in the state of Florida," said Dr. Amy Wright, director of HARBOR BRANCH's Division of Biomedical Marine Research.

The Biomedical and Marine Technology center will be one of three new Centers of Excellence in Florida. Funding for the centers was based on peer-review of proposals submitted by teams of scientists at Florida's leading research universities and was appropriated in the 2002 state budget and approved by the governor and the cabinet earlier this year. The appropriation for the center is intended as seed money to further expand Florida's emerging marine biotechnology industry over the next two years with the goal of attracting longer-term funding from federal and commercial sources.

HARBOR BRANCH is slated to receive approximately one third of the new center's funding. One of the most exciting aspects of the new center, according to Wright, is that it will allow HARBOR BRANCH to dramatically increase the number of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows it can support and train. This will result in expansion of the workforce available to support the marine biotechnology industry.

Funding from the Center of Excellence and other sources, including $500,000 in federal funding secured in the Fiscal Year 2003 federal budget by Congressman Mark Foley, will also allow HARBOR BRANCH to buy a new state-of-the art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) system that will enable improved analysis of chemical samples from marine organisms collected on expeditions. The current system is over a decade old, and Wright compares the change to upgrading from a 14-year-old personal computer.

This new equipment will be the most advanced NMR system in the state, and will allow scientists to more easily and accurately determine the three-dimensional structure of chemicals derived from marine organism samples. This is a critical step in assessing the pharmaceutical potential of a chemical that shows a promising ability to destroy cancer or bacterial cells, or performs well in other screening tests.

The new Center of Excellence will also include benefits outside the laboratory as it will provide funding for new expeditions beginning in 2004 that will take advantage of both new ocean technologies developed through FAU and HARBOR BRANCH's unique Johnson-Sea-Link submersibles. In coming months FAU will be outfitting autonomous underwater vehicles, which are programmed to function on their own without a pilot, with cameras that will allow them to quickly and economically scout sections of seafloor in search of rich concentrations of marine life. These locations will then be explored using the Johnson-Sea-Links to collect organism samples that will be tested to determine if they produce chemicals with pharmaceutical benefits. Expeditions will focus mainly on deep waters surrounding Florida to take advantage of the state's incredible and largely untapped diversity of marine life.

HARBOR BRANCH's previous marine biotechnology efforts have already led to the discovery of numerous important potential drugs including discodermolide, which is now in the first stage of human clinical trials as a cancer treatment.

Journalists who would like to attend the launch ceremony or interview HARBOR BRANCH researchers involved with the center should contact Jan Petri at 772-465-2400 ext. 241 or petri@hboi.edu. Photos and B-roll of past drug discovery work are available on request.

Visit www.floridabiotech.org to learn more.
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HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution was founded in Ft. Pierce, Fla., in 1971 to support the exploration and conservation of the world's oceans. The institution has held to this mission and grown into one of the world's leading oceanographic institutions with a 500-acre campus, over 200 personnel, and a fleet of sophisticated research ships and submersibles.

The Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. To learn more about NOAA, visit http://www.noaa.gov

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