I’ve just posted this news article on NNB about $20 million in new state funding for Massachusetts biomedical researchers. This is part of Governor Patrick’s $1 billion life sciences plan.

MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research announced this week that it has received $20 million for research on psychiatric disease. The money is from philanthropists James and Patricia Poitras, who have a daughter with bipolar disorder. James Poitras, according to the Globe, is the retired president of Highland Laboratories, a medical products company. Across the street, the Broad Institute is setting up its own privately-funded center for research on mental illness, so expect to see new collaborations in the future around Boston.

BASF, the big chemical company, will establish the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which will provide $20 million in research funding over the next five years. Research will focus on topics such as molecules for targeted drug delivery and strategies for controlling biofilm formation.

UMass Lowell announced plans to build the $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, which will conduct nano- and biomanufacturing research.

The Globe reported earlier this week that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is inspecting MIT’s research nuclear reactor after the university reported that one of the workers at the reactor had a radiation reading of 4 rem from July to September 2007. The NRC’s exposure limit is 5 rem.

Local autism research groups are sharing their data. Members of the Autism Consortium (which include Harvard, MIT, MGH, McLean Hospital, Children’s Hospital, BU, Beth Israel and several other local institutions) will pool together the genetic profiles of 700 families that have two or more kids with autism. The human genetics community seems to have an enviable culture of sharing data. The Globe has a nice quote from Mark Daly, a researcher with the Broad/MGH and a member of the consortium: ”Understanding the genetics underlying a complex disease is not an easy problem to solve. So there’s no excuse for hoarding your data when much more can be learned by sharing.”