Technology Transfer Centre to boost State's agriculture
The technology transfer centre combines the talents of Agriculture Western Australia and the Murdoch-based State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre.
A $300,000 contract customised laboratories in the University's Loneragan Building for the Agriculture WA team which moved in recently.
The technology transfer team will collaborate with Murdoch's Professor Mike Jones and his colleagues in the SABC to make use of their expertise and facilities, and to commercialise breakthroughs achieved by the SABC scientists.
"The new Centre will allow technologies we have developed in the R&D phase to be transferred through to where they can be of practical value in areas such as plant and animal breeding, and diagnostics," Professor Jones said.
"But the revolution in agricultural biotechnology and its applications will not replace established agricultural practises; rather the two go hand in hand."
Dr Graeme Robertson, Chief Executive Officer, Agriculture WA says the state's agricultural industry has an exciting future.
"Our industry has sustained growth because we are producing quality products for international markets; in a very clean environment; with some of the best technology that applies to agriculture, and because we have, perhaps, the best farmers in the world who are willing and able to adopt new technology very rapidly.
A national Science and Technology Minister had once divided industries into sunset and sunrise categories, and described agriculture as a sunset industry, Dr Robertson said.
"Perhaps the sun sets a bit later in the west, but I suggest agriculture certainly is not a sunset industry."
In welcoming the Agriculture WA/SABC collaboration, Murdoch's Pro Vice Chancellor (Research), Professor Andrew Glenn, said the development of partnerships was the way of the future, and the University looked forward to similar opportunities to serve the community of Western Australia.
Murdoch's Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Jeff Gawthorne said while the partnership was a model for effective and efficient collaboration, it was not driven solely by financial considerations.
"All the money in the world and the most elaborate facilities would be as nothing if we didn't have the best people and the best intellectual environment for them to work in," Professor Gawthorne said. "Therefore, the most important benefit to come out of this initiative will be the intellectual stimulation and the synergies that develop between the staff working in this facility.
"We expect innovative ideas and practical solutions from active minds that are sparking ideas off each other."
Among the immediate tasks for the technology transfer team will be to implement mass testing procedures using molecular markers pioneered or established by SABC scientists.
"We have available a range of new techniques in the laboratory for improving crops 
the latest being a DNA marker for identifying noodle-quality wheat, developed with Agriculture WA breeders," Professor Jones said.
This and other discoveries now await implementation on a scale that would be useful to breeders, he said.
The Agriculture WA scientists, accommodated in the purpose-built technology transfer laboratory and with access to SABC's expertise and high-tech equipment, will play a key role in this next stage of development.
Professor Jones said that the installation of Australia's first Quantitative PCR machine and a robotic workstation at the SABC, allowing quantitative diagnostic tests and replacing tedious manual operations, was a major attraction for the Agriculture W.A. team to move to the Murdoch campus.
The new equipment worth $220,000 was partly funded by a $150,000 Australian Research Centre grant. Murdoch contributed $60,000 and the balance was from Curtin University of Technology.
The State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre and the Agriculture WA laboratory will have a combined staff of 86, making it one of the largest centres of its kind in Australia.
Smiles all round for the launch of the new Technology Transfer Laboratory. From left: Murdoch University's Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Jeff Gawthorne, Sylvia Lachberg (Research Officer Agriculture WA), SABC Director Mike Jones, Terry Enright (Chair of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, WA panel) and Dr Graeme Robertson, CEO of
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