The University of Louisville in Kentucky last month unveiled a $300-million plan to construct five life-sciences buildings. Project leaders aim to generate $2.3 billion and 8,700 jobs over 20 years. The initiative, NUCLEUS, will include space to incubate biotech companies and provide services in technology transfer, business development and intellectual property.

“There was no space, no economic incentives to incubate and develop start-ups,” says president James Ramsey. “We weren't doing much in the way of research. We didn't have much infrastructure in place. We didn't have life-science seed funds. We didn't have venture funds to invest in start-up companies.” The city, state and university all realized they needed to make changes for the area's historically manufacturing-based economy to be competitive, he says.

The first step was a 1997 state programme called 'Bucks for Brains'. The state matched donors to create endowed chairs. So far, it has raised $198 million and helped the university to triple the number of endowed chairs to 126. That has increased the university's competitiveness for federal research dollars. The Bucks for Brains scholars have brought in more than $144 million in additional federal funding. In 2007, the university had the nation's biggest 10-year increase in US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.

That programme helped set the stage for the new life-science park, says Manuel Martinez-Maldonado, vice-president of research. He says the NUCLEUS project will help with the next step: attracting companies to the area and spinning off start-ups from the university's research. He hopes the university will compete for clinical trials and attract related services, such as contract-research organizations.

To that end, the NIH awarded the university $22 million in 2005 to build the Center for Predictive Medicine, one of 13 national biosafety level-3 labs that will develop vaccines to protect against bioterrorism and emerging diseases. The lab will open by the end of this year. It should help the university to carve out research niches in areas such as in-vivo imaging of host–virus interactions, Martinez-Maldonado says.

NUCLEUS will offer services to help researchers at all stages of drug and technology development, says Vickie Yates Brown, chief executive and president of the new organization. It will allow the university to take research “from the mind to the marketplace” she adds.