Sweden's top-rated Karolinska Institute has inked a global research partnership with a U.S. life science organisation.

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The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics has formed a new global research partnership called "Frontiers in Biomedicine" with Sweden's Karolinska Institute -- "the top-rated medical research university in Europe."

"Advances in technology and medicine have created exciting new opportunities to predict, prevent, diagnose and treat disease," said Eric Wieben, a molecular biologist and Minnesota Partnership project leader for Mayo. "To take advantage of these opportunities on a competitive time scale, multi-disciplinary teams of doctors and scientists are needed."

The Minnesota Partnership is a state-funded collaboration between Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota first proposed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2003.

The $22 million research headquarters opened in 2007 in the Vincent A. Stabile Building on the Mayo Clinic campus in Rochester.

By bringing the best minds from all three "world-leading institutions" (Mayo, the U of M and Karolinska) together, Wieben said, "we will be able to speed the pace of change and bring better care to our patients faster than we could if we were all competing against each other."

This newest collaboration formalizes a decades-long unwritten intimacy between Minnesota and Stockholm researchers. It represents a forceful step onto the national stage for Mayo, the U of M and Minnesota's biotech image after the recession took a bite out of the Minnesota Partnership's early rosy job projections.

Minnesota Partnership advocates, though, are keeping their eye on the future.

"Biomedical knowledge is expanding so fast that we need solid partnerships to leverage our discoveries," Dr. Frank Cerra, Wieben's counterpart at the U of M, said in the Mayo statement.

According to Mayo, the Karolinska Mayo-U of M collaboration will focus on three specific areas of expertise:
- Regenerative medicine.
- "Bio-omics" (research in fields of study such as genomics and protein research or proteomics)
- Research into immunity, such as improved vaccines against infectious illnesses like HIV, TB and malaria that affect many people in the developing world.

Mayo CEO Dr. John Noseworthy recently named regenerative medicine in particular as one of the clinic's top strategic priorities.

According to the Mayo announcement about the collaboration with the Swedish institute, regenerative medicine focuses on "regenerating damaged cells within the body and/or creating replacements in the laboratory."

"Regenerative medicine shows particular promise for treating a wide variety of diseases, including diabetes and heart disease," Wieben said. Another focus of the collaboration with Karolinska will be creating a career path for bright young researchers.

Mayo's Dr. Robert Rizza, executive dean for research, said in the clinic statement that "strong partnerships make us more efficient and productive while fostering some of the best scientific minds in the world."

Specific dollar amounts for planned, jointly funded fellowships that each institution will host for "promising young investigators" were not announced.

But Wieben said "It's not unusual for such awards to involve over $100,000 in cost to the hosting institution."

The dollar amounts for these "Frontiers Awards" will depend, he said, upon the training and experience of the recipients, as well as their planned research. They will provide a year of support "so they can benefit from the expertise at collaborating institutions."

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