In This Report: Missouri Home St. Louis: Building on the Basics Kansas City Looks Ahead Positioned for the Future
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St. Louis and Kansas City are both moving front and center in plant and life sciences. Many of the largest agricultural-related companies in the world have a presence in St. Louis, including Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto, Mallinckrodt and Ralston-Purina. In a study commissioned by the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, these and other factors led the Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute to identify the region as a prime center for plant science and a major center for life science. With that, says Richard C.D. Fleming, president and chief executive officer of the SLRCGA, there came another conclusion: “St. Louis is positioned to be the world leader in plant sciences.” The association soon began branding the area’s plant- and life-sciences cluster as the “BioBelt.”

The director of the Danforth Center in Creve Couer is Roger N. Beachy, a former instructor at Washington University who holds a Ph.D. in plant pathology from Michigan State University. Until now, says Beachy, plant science has been a “poor cousin” of life sciences, garnering minimal government research awards and relatively modest corporate contracts. The director, who is in the process of hiring 225 researchers to staff the center, hopes to close the gap. And doing so could have vast implications for the future.

In the last 50 years the world population has increased from 2.5 billion to 6 billion people. During that same time the earth has lost 25 percent of its topsoil, 20 percent of its agricultural land and one-third of its forests. In the face of these diminishing resources, plant research is the key to unlocking the secrets of genetic resistance, chemical controls and other mysteries that will result in higher crop yields.

At the other end of the Biotech Corridor, in the 15-county Kansas City metropolitan area, an estimated 250,000 jobs were created in the last 10 years. Now, the region stands to benefit from the creation of a life science economy.

A moving force in that direction is the not-for-profit Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, Inc., launched in 1999 by civic, business and research leaders. Among the life science research organizations collaborating in the KCALSI efforts, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research is among the newest and most notable. American Century Cos. Inc. founder James Stowers and his wife, Virginia, announced in 1994 that they would devote their personal fortune to medical research. The result was the opening in November 2000 of the $200 million Stowers Institute, as well as an early gift from the namesakes of $1.1 billion in securities. Eventually, some 600 scientists will be doing research at the institute.

The KCALSI and other biomedical research proponents often refer to “islands of excellence” within their midst. While the Stowers Institute is the biggest research island in the chain, there are others. These include the University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute; the University of Missouri at Kansas; and the Midwest Research Institute, a provider of contract research and development services in biomedicine and pharmaceuticals.

An equidistant 125 miles from Kansas City and St. Louis is the city of Columbia, a kind of linchpin for the I-70 Biotech Corridor. Here the University of Missouri recently broke ground for its $60 million Life Sciences Center, scheduled for completion in 2004. With this facility, says Dr. Michael Chippendale, interim director of the center, a range of life sciences programs will be integrated. “It’s a facility,” he says, “designed to promote scientific interactions.”

Yet another connection in the Biotech Corridor is being fused by the University of Missouri-Rolla and Fort Leonard Wood, which are within 30 miles of each other. The Rolla campus is one of four maintained by the University of Missouri, and is its primary technological facility. Fort Leonard Wood is a center for the U.S. Army’s environmental technologies, including its biological, chemical and nuclear schools.

Still other developments promise to enhance the research capabilities along the length of the Biotech Corridor. In St. Louis, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation hurried in recent weeks to complete its $55 million Life Science Technology Center. In spring of 2001, Washington University began construction of a $33 million medical engineering building. The Missouri Botanical Garden is home to the world’s most active research program in tropical botany, and the site of a $20 million Monsanto Center that holds millions of plant species. And Monsanto Company operates the Chesterfield Village Research Center, home to more than 900 scientists dedicated to biotechnology. Still another St. Louis asset is the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, a business incubator, focused on life sciences.

On the Kansas City side of the research ledger, Quintiles Transnational Corp., which purchased Hoechst Marion Roussel’s drug development labs in Kansas City, helped set up the Missouri Biotechnology Association. The organization grew from 20 to 120 members within a year. Its formation is just one more example of how I-70, Missouri’s Biotech Corridor, has put this state on the fast track to the future.



This special section was written by Edward J. Walsh and designed by John Browning for ROP, Ltd.

Produced by James O. Armstrong, president of James Armstrong & Associates, Inc., james-armstrong@worldnet.att.net.