Sustained growth of the Western Australian State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (SABC)

Although no one state institution 'owns' biotechnology, the WA State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (SABC) comes closest to doing this, and is the acknowledged Centre for R&D in agricultural biotechnology in WA.

Established in 1993 following recommendations of the Mulcahy Committee on Rural Research in WA, the SABC developed as a multi-user centre in which research groups rent laboratory space and have full access to state-of-the-art facilities.

Although situated at Murdoch University, the SABC supports researchers and groups from Murdoch University and its other partners the Department of Agriculture of Western Australia, the University of Western Australia and Curtin University of Technology.

The vision followed for more than 10 years is that the SABC should:

• Provide access to specialised equipment and expertise in molecular biology common to research on plants and animals;
• Foster collaborative work between local institutions, bringing together expertise from different disciplines to bear on agricultural, horticultural, forestry and veterinary problems of WA;
• Provide postgraduate education and help inform farmers, agriculturalists and industry of new approaches and possibilities in agriculture; and
• Become a meeting point for industry and research, and so ensure relevance to the needs of the State.

There has been a continuous and dramatic increase in the number of researchers using the SABC facilities (blue - researchers resident in the SABC, maroon non-resident researchers).

There are now 228 researchers using the SABC facilities and infrastructure from twenty research groups.

The SABC has also been successful in attracting commercial researchers to its facilities and promoting and supporting the formation of new companies in agricultural biotechnology. Commercial researchers at the SABC include Grain Biotech Australia, Saturn Biotech and Proteomics International.

The research strengths and national recognition of the researchers at the SABC is refl ected in participation in eight agricultural CRCs. These provide national and international links.

• Molecular Plant Breeding CRC
• Value Added Wheat CRC
• Innovative Grains CRC
• Beef Quality CRC
• Sheep CRC
• Environmental Biotechnology CRC
• Australian Biosecurity CRC
• National Plant Biosecurity CRC