David Topham, Ph.D. stands next to an IBM supercomputer.
Since 2005, UR has experienced a 31 percent increase in research funds, culminating in the $461 million received for the fiscal year that ended last June, while the number of UR employees rose by almost 20 percent to just under 20,000. But the spillover of research to startups has been less pronounced. UR is now licensing the know-how from its research to 31 local companies that, as of about a year ago, employed 346 workers.
Both UR and RIT are trying to increase their economic presence locally. UR is teaming up with IBM to establish a $100 million high-powered computer center that will provide unique research capabilities in health-related sciences, while RIT is establishing itself as a leader in promoting cost savings in green technology and industrial sustainability.
In his office at UR's School of Medicine and Dentistry, David Topham, Ph.D. who is vice provost and executive director of Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation, can pull up on his computer screen an image of two proteins interacting with a virus. You need the supercomputer to handle the amounts of data required for this sort of simulation,
said Topham, explaining how this high-powered computer is helping researchers trying to design a vaccine against a range of viruses.