FAU center credits marine biotechnology work with boosting university research, patents and clinical trials

Florida Atlantic University’s Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology traced two decades of research growth to a 2003 state award and highlighted drug-discovery, imaging and clinical research at a committee presentation.

“This was established in, in 2003, in September of 2003 through a $10,000,000 award from the state,” Dr. Greg Fields told the Senate Committee on Education Postsecondary.

Fields described an initial focus on marine natural products and medicinal chemistry—extracting compounds from marine organisms—and said the center later shifted toward genomic sequencing and bioinformatics to identify genes that may produce useful compounds. He estimated the program has already identified on the order of “probably over 400,000” unique bacterial genes and suggested the number of unique compounds from broader organism collections could be “probably over a 1000000.”

Fields said initial drug-discovery work helped FAU secure roughly $16,500,000 in grant support from agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NOAA and the Florida Department of Health. He also described patents and technology-transfer activity: FAU’s work with a company, OP Solutions, produced about 100 provisional patent applications assigned and roughly 20 patents issued to date; the university received about $230,000 in patent fees and the company had contributed about $1,500,000 toward research, Fields said.

The center has produced multiple spin-offs and institutes, Fields said, including a Cancer Center of Excellence (a legislative designation) that FAU joined as the system’s fifth cancer center in 2021 in partnership with Memorial Cancer Institute and other member institutions. Fields said the center’s neurodegenerative-disease research has led to a Neuro Innovate Research and Training Center that pairs focused ultrasound technology with MRI to open the blood–brain barrier and improve drug delivery. Describing early trial imaging, he said a treated brain region “cleared out about 80% of the beta amyloid” compared with about 10% on the untreated side, and added FAU is building clinical capacity to scale treatments.

Fields attributed the center’s work to FAU’s growth in research expenditures, saying the university surpassed $100,000,000 in total research expenditures for the first time and is on track to meet Carnegie R1 benchmarks in 2025.

Fields listed clinical and community partners including Delray Medical Center, West Palm Beach VA Hospital, Memorial Healthcare System and Broward Health and said the center’s activities span drug discovery, remote sensing and workforce development.

The presentation was informational; the committee did not take formal action on the center’s programs.