Texas Governor Rick Perry Helps Break Ground for Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine (TIGM) Building

(release from the Texas A&M University System)

June 20, 2006

Contact: Terri Parker or Tina Evans
(979) 458-6023
SysComm@tamu.edu

(College Station, TX)—Texas Governor Rick Perry and A&M System officials broke ground this morning on a new building that will house what will be the world’s largest collection of mouse embryonic stem cells.

The ceremony marked the start of construction on the new building for the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine (TIGM), which will pioneer the development of life-changing medical innovations, accelerate the pace of medical discoveries and foster development of the biotechnology industry in Texas.

The Institute is a non-profit organization founded by two members of The Texas A&M University System—Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Health Science Center—in collaboration with Lexicon Genetics Incorporated in The Woodlands. In July 2005, Governor Perry announced a $50 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant to establish the Institute, which he said will bring 5,000 new, high-paying jobs to Texas.

Artist's rendering of the new TIGM building

“Not only will TIGM’s libraries and resources be available to researchers from universities all across Texas, they’ll also be open to members of the private sector, who will use that knowledge gained at this Institute to develop new technologies around the world,” Perry said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “History shows that when government, industry and the academic world join together to solve great challenges, the possibilities for revolutionary development are limitless.”

Joining Perry in delivering remarks at the groundbreaking was The Honorable Kevin Brady, U.S. Congressman, District 8. Brady said, “There are groundbreakings, and then there is breaking new ground. Today, we both break ground on a state-of-the-art facility that will hold the deepest and richest pool of genomic material in the world. And within this facility, and because of it, we’re going to be breaking new ground, accelerating medical breakthroughs that our families and our children will be counting on.”

John D. White, Chairman of The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, presided over the ceremony. He said that no other individual has done more to make TIGM a reality than Governor Perry. “This facility, when it’s built, will hold a library of mouse embryos for knockout mouse research. The library here, and at our Institute of Biosciences and Technology in Houston, will constitute the largest library of its kind in the world,” he said. White added that the TIGM facility will be located next to Texas A&M University’s world-renowned College of Veterinary Medicine and Research Park, which will locate it at what he called “the center of activity for research in the biosciences.”

Also delivering remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony were Robert D. McTeer, chancellor, The Texas A&M University System; Nancy W. Dickey, president of the Texas A&M Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health affairs for the Texas A&M System; David B. Prior, executive vice president and provost, Texas A&M University; and Arthur T. Sands, president and CEO, Lexicon Genetics Incorporated.

McTeer said, “We recently took an important first step in tweaking tenure to get the incentives right, to put Texas A&M in a leadership role in the new era of university-industry collaboration. When TIGM, Lexicon and affiliated researchers discover the genes implicated in diabetes and other dreaded diseases like Alzheimer’s, let them write their papers, but more importantly, let them get their discoveries to market.”

At McTeer’s recommendation, The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents voted in May to allow commercialization of faculty research to be considered in the granting of tenure to faculty at A&M System universities. In December, the board voted to establish a system-level Office of Technology Commercialization, to help researchers at A&M System member institutions and agencies bring technologies they develop to the marketplace.

The 9:30 a.m. groundbreaking ceremony for the TIGM building was held on the site where it will be constructed, off Raymond Stotzer Parkway in College Station, Texas, next to the Large Animal Clinic at Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. The 43,000-square-foot building is scheduled to be completed in May 2007. It was designed by Perkins+Will and will be built by the Houston-based Fretz Construction.

About the Partners

Texas A&M University, the state’s first public institution of higher education and the A&M System’s flagship, is a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution with approximately 44,000 students in 170 fields of study in 10 academic colleges. Texas A&M’s 2,500 faculty conduct more than $500 million worth of sponsored research projects.

Texas A&M Health Science Center is a statewide institution with multiple locations and education, research and outreach programs in medicine, dentistry, public health and biomedical sciences. The HSC’s Institute of Biosciences and Technology in the Texas Medical Center is the Houston location for the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine.

Lexicon Genetics Incorporated is a biopharmaceutical company in The Woodlands focused on discovering and developing new ways to treat human diseases. Lexicon is using its proprietary gene knockout technology to discover the physiological and behavioral functions of genes and identify potential points of therapeutic intervention, or drug targets.