By GREGORY ZELLER //
Two of Long Island’s cornerstone bioscience institutions have extended a longstanding – and highly successful – collaboration.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health announced this week they are re-upping an “affiliation agreement” first signed in 2015. The partnership aims to bring leading bioscience research directly from the laboratory to the patients who need it most – cancer patients in particular – with advanced clinical trials, next-generation medical technologies and other biotechnology-based progress all in play.
So far, it’s fulfilling that lofty promise, according to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory President and CEO Bruce Stillman, who said the alliance has brought “transformative bioscience research into the clinic” over its first decade.
“As New York’s largest healthcare provider, the Northwell Health system serves a remarkably diverse patient population,” Stillman said Monday. “This (new) agreement will provide patient communities with greater access to cutting-edge biomedical technology, allowing for more precise diagnoses and treatments and ultimately facilitating new breakthroughs in cancer care.”
Stillman and Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling were both on hand to sign the original agreement back in 2015, with Stillman promising a “transformational affiliation” and Dowling predicting “pioneering cancer therapies” from the union of CSHL and New York State’s largest healthcare system, known then as the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.
Early warning: The CSHL/Northwell Health affiliation will look to redefine the “state of the art” in cancer detection.
A decade later, Dowling is trumpeting another “pivotal moment in accelerating our efforts to advance cancer research.”
The extended arrangement brightens the spotlights on the CSHL Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated research mecca featuring 60-plus biology and cancer laboratories; the Northwell Health Cancer Institute, which has invested more than $500 million over the last three years in expanded cancer-treatment centers throughout Long Island and New York City; and the Manhasset-based Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Northwell’s thriving scientific-investigation hub, where 5,000-plus staffers occupy more than 50 state-of-the-art multidisciplinary labs.
With 82 distinct research projects, more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and three clinical trials (in various stages of progress) already under its belt – plus the development of 200 revolutionary “cancer organoid” models (living tissue models derived from patient tumor cells for clinical laboratory disease analysis and drug testing) – the extended affiliation will continue its Herculean efforts to translate basic research into real-world clinical applications, while “train(ing) the next generation of scientist-clinicians,” according to CSHL.
Cell block: The partners will continue to take the fight directly to cancer’s source.
After posting bona fide breakthroughs in leukemia research, making clear progress in the war against glioblastoma brain cancer and contributing impressive advances on COVID-19 and other non-cancer issues, there’s every reason to believe the extended affiliation agreement will continue to pay enormous dividends, Dowling added.
“Reaffirming our exclusive strategic affiliation with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Northwell Health’s 400 physician-researchers … [will] revolutionize treatment in the fight against cancer,” the Northwell Health CEO said Monday. “We are building on nearly 10 years of shared vision and collaboration, merging cutting-edge discovery science with novel clinical trials to drive therapeutic applications for the patients we serve across the New York metropolitan area and beyond.”
