Grant to fund state-of-the-art equipment

In a show of local support and to help the university secure national dollars, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo has given a $49,500 grant to the School of Pharmacy and its Center for Drug Discovery and Experimental Therapeutics.

The grant will be used to buy a Gene Tac Hybridization Station and accessories as part of an ongoing cooperative effort involving the School of Pharmacy, the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Wayne K. Anderson, dean of the pharmacy school, said the timing of the grant is particularly important, "since it allows us to buy an important piece of equipment that fits into our mosaic of instruments targeting new drug discoveries.

"The Human Genome Project has provided us with a roadmap of genes; now we in pharmaceutical sciences want to use that information and proceed with identifying the function of a gene."

The Gene Tac Hybridization Station will help with that process by scanning thousands of genes simultaneously and generating information that can be used to predict drug responses in individual patients. For example, it could lead to a process that would allow researchers to scan tumor genes and identify key genetic markers that would enable physicians to optimize cancer therapy for the individual patient.