The Missouri Life Sciences Research Board (MLSRB) met at the Christopher S. “Kit” Bond Life Sciences Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia on Friday, June 22nd. Among key discussions, board members focused on how the funding set aside for the Life Sciences Trust Fund by House Bill 7, Section 7.020 was going to be spent. The board, with the assistance of the Missouri Department of Economic Development and the Missouri Technology Corporation and the Hawthorn Foundation has begun the encouraging work of standing up the necessary Centers of Excellence throughout Missouri.

The centers, virtual rather than physical in nature, will encompass Kansas City, St. Louis, Southwest Missouri, and one for the remaining Missouri regions. The St. Louis center will cover St. Louis city and St. Louis, St. Charles, Franklin and Jefferson counties. In Kansas City the geographical area will be Jackson, Andrew, Clay, Buchanan and Platte counties. As for Southwest Missouri, the counties that are covered are Greene, Christian and Webster counties. The fourth center covers the rest of the state, and will include the interests of the University of Missouri-Columbia and the institutions not specifically included in the other Centers for Excellence.

The individual centers will have the ability to highlight and nominate where funding is needed for each region. MLSRB views regional and statewide centers as virtual organizations, whose purpose is to determine the important life science research and commercialization initiatives important to their specific region. Moneys in the life sciences research trust fund shall be used strategically, in cooperation with other governmental and not-for-profit private entities. This cooperation will enhance Missouri's ability to perform future research to better serve the health and welfare of state's residents. Projects, in the first year shall focus solely on agriculture research in the areas of bio-energy, plant science, animal health and nutrition.   There is a statutory requirement that 20% of the funds appropriated to the Life Sciences Trust Fund be spent towards commercialization of research from the targeted clusters mentioned in the previous sentence.

The Life Sciences Research Board discussed a projected timeline that will help facilitate each center selecting and reviewing their areas research institutions. Beginning last week (mid- July), the Centers for Excellence proposals were due to the MSLRB, which will formally approve the organization of each Center at their next meeting scheduled for July 24th. It is also anticipated that the Life Sciences Research Board approve a request for proposal (RFP) for statewide Research and Commercialization proposals at this meeting. Working through the month of August, each Center will set about putting proposals together and establishing screening committees. In September, the LSRB should be in position to accept proposals from each center as they have been reviewed and prioritized by the screening committee.

Early October is the target for the initial peer review of proposals, followed up by the final approval of proposals in November. The approval of the report is due to the Chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees by the December 1, 2007 deadline requested by the General Assembly.

Entities that were present at the board meeting included representatives from Missouri State University, Washington University, University of Missouri-Columbia, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Missouri Biotechnology Association, the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, and the Missouri Technology Corporation.