Huntsville, Ala. —The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology will collaborate with other scientists, clinicians and industry partners in the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Founded by billionaire Sean Parker, co-founder of music-sharing website Napster and the first president of Facebook, the Parker Institute will focus on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells. More than 300 scientists and 40 labs could potentially participate in the effort.
Parker has been a long-time supporter of cancer research and hopes the newly established Institute will support a more coordinated cancer immunotherapy research effort. He put $250 million of his own money towards the Institute.
HudsonAlpha is one of 30 collaborators at the Parker Institute
Parker sees the Institute as an entrepreneurial spin on team science, in the hopes of advancing the science faster.
“At the end of the day, I see this as a bold experiment to see if this type of collaboration can help move the field forward faster, and bring solutions to patients,” said Parker.
“The Parker Institute is bringing together scientists and entrepreneurs and that is exactly the idea set and culture that HudsonAlpha established when we founded the Institute in 2008,” said Richard Myers, PhD; president and science director of HudsonAlpha. “We have seen this work– bringing health solutions from the laboratory bench to patients much more quickly than in traditional organizations. We are honored to be a part of this unique research effort.”
To learn more about the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, visit parkerici.org.
About HudsonAlpha: HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is a nonprofit institute dedicated to innovating in the field of genomic technology and sciences across a spectrum of biological challenges. Founded in 2008, its mission is four-fold: sparking scientific discoveries that can impact human health and well-being; bringing genomic medicine into clinical care; fostering life sciences entrepreneurship and business growth; and encouraging the creation of a genomics-literate workforce and society. The HudsonAlpha biotechnology campus consists of 152 acres nestled within Cummings Research Park, the nation’s second largest research park. Designed to be a hothouse of biotech economic development, HudsonAlpha’s state-of-the-art facilities co-locate nonprofit scientific researchers with entrepreneurs and educators. The relationships formed on the HudsonAlpha campus encourage collaborations that produce advances in medicine and agriculture. Under the leadership of Dr. Richard M. Myers, a key collaborator on the Human Genome Project, HudsonAlpha has become a national and international leader in genetics and genomics research and biotech education, and includes 32 diverse biotech companies on campus. To learn more about HudsonAlpha, visit: http://hudsonalpha.org/.
Media Contact:
Margetta Thomas
mthomas@hudsonalpha.org
256-327-0425
