New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Lt. Governor Robert Duffy got a first-hand glimpse of research at the leading edge of biology this morning.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Lt. Governor Robert Duffy got a first-hand glimpse of research at the leading edge of biology this morning. They visited Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, kicking off the latest leg of their economic development tour of New York State.
The Governor urged CSHL “to keep doing what it does best—accomplish the impossible” in extending the frontiers of biomedical knowledge.
CSHL President Bruce Stillman, Ph.D. and members of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council accompanied Cuomo and Duffy to the laboratory of Dr. David Tuveson, a distinguished pancreatic cancer researcher and Deputy Director of CSHL’s Cancer Center.
Drs. Tuveson and Stillman briefed the dignitaries on CSHL’s new Cancer Therapeutics Initiative, which New York State is helping to fund by seeding the construction of a new Advanced Drug Testing Facility located in Woodbury, Long Island. One of the keynotes of the CSHL Initiative is translation of advanced basic research such as that performed in the Tuveson lab to the development and validation of novel cancer drug targets and candidate compounds.
“The central idea in our Cancer Therapeutic Initiative is to create a translational pipeline that will enable us to help develop a new generation of cancer drugs that will be more effective and less toxic than those currently in use,” Dr. Stillman said. Another objective is to significantly reduce the time it takes to identify and test candidate drugs, to accelerate their path to the clinic.
At a press conference, Stuart Rabinowitz, President of Hofstra University, and Kevin Law, President and CEO of the Long Island Association, both co-chairs of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, introduced a video prepared for the benefit of Cuomo, Duffy and the assessment team.
Featuring leaders of institutions that have benefited from the first round of state funding, the video highlighted the importance of public support for cutting-edge science in driving economic development of the region and in providing new high-quality jobs.
Governor Cuomo in his remarks stressed his support for efforts aimed at accelerating the rate at which discoveries made in basic research are commercialized. The Governor also expressed his conviction that state economic advancement ought to proceed on the basis of regional plans, rather than plans focusing on the state, in aggregate.
Next stop for the Governor’s party was the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park, an incubator facility that Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory helped to found and where CSHL spin-off biotech companies have made their start.
Written by: Communications Department | publicaffairs@cshl.edu | 516-367-8455