March 13, 2012 in City Researchers wooed to organize $15 million researchcenter

The HSSA was established several years ago to capture some of the local-option sales taxes collected in the Spokane area to help pay for projects designed to create a thriving research cluster in thearea.

Washington State University is recruiting two genetics researchers to its Spokane campus to launch a $15 million research enterprise that will add 135 pharmaceuticalscientists.

Its a bold research and job-creation effort announced Monday that relies in part on leveraging a $1.2 million investment of local tax dollars with federal, state and privatefunds.

These are people and projects that can be a real catalyst for Spokane, said Susan Ashe, acting executive director of the Health Sciences & Services Authority of SpokaneCounty.

Called the HSSA, the authority was established several years ago to capture a sliver of the local-option sales taxes collected in the Spokane area to help pay for projects designed to create a thriving research clusterhere.

If successful, the projects will turn into either sustained research facilities that create jobs, or they will produce ideas or goods that can becommercialized.

Philip Lazarus, a professor and researcher at Penn State Universitys College of Medicine, has been offered a position to erect a new academic and research program at WSU, a rare opportunity that WSU is dangling as a recruitment tool along with a generous financial package. The HSSA is contributing $500,000 over two years to help bring Lazarus to Spokane and set up hisprogram.

This is pretty exciting stuff. An opportunity in academic research to really create something with your stamp on it, said Gary Pollack, WSU vice provost for healthsciences.

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WSU venturing into pharmacogenomics - Tue, 13 Mar 2012 PST