New ISTC Executive Director Meets with the Director General of Biopreparat

Adriaan van der Meer, accompanied by Deputy Executive Director, Leo Owsiacki, visited the Institute of Immunological Engineering in Lyubuchany, RF, for frank discussions with the Director General of Biopreparat, Mr. V.N. Kolesniko, and Director General of the institute, Mr. S.Y. Pchelintsev, together with their Deputies and Heads of Departments. This was a first visit by the new ISTC Executive Director to this location and served to acquaint him with the conditions in the Institute and laboratories as well as an opportunity to discuss details of past and on-going ISTC projects at the Institute and more informally to debate the future directions and current needs of both ISTC and Biopreparat and its constituent organizations.

Biopreparat is a joint stock holding company comprised of approximately 30 institutes with 36,000 staff, the majority of which are profit-oriented. At this particular institute, ISTC previously funded 15 projects for $5.7 million USD from the EU, USA, Japan & Canada and is currently funding an additional 15 projects for $9.9 million USD from the USA, EU and Canada. The projects address a wide variety of current research topics of interest such as diagnostic tests for anti-cancer therapies, oral anti-tuberculosis vaccine and phago-immunotherapy of anthrax, to name a few.

Following the meetings, a tour of the laboratory facilities and presentations of project results and future proposals were provided and all parties came away with a positive outlook and an intention to continue to collaborate closely to meet organization objectives.