Nov 06, 2014 04:52 AM EST By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

The University of Glasgow and AstraZeneca teamed up to launched the GLAZgo Discovery Center which will focus on understanding more about immunological disease processes.

The initiative highlights what can be achieved when two parties share a common philosophy on how academic medicine and a pharmaceutical company should combine forces to drive forward the creation of future medicines, according to school officials. The two-way exchange of information is already delivering a new understanding of the underlying mechanism involved in one of AstraZeneca's drug projects with an immunological target. 

In addition, future areas of research are being fostered through combining novel immunological cellular assays from the Institute of Infection, Immunology and Inflammation with the chemistry expertise and specific tools from AstraZeneca. 

. "GLAZgo Discovery integrates world-class pharmaceutical science with the academic excellence contained in the University of Glasgow in an exciting venture that will bring extraordinary opportunities for new discoveries and thus, in time, new medicines," Iain McInnes, director of the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation at the University of Glasgow, said in a statement

The Center is also aimed at training the next generation of researchers at the interface between academic and industry science and has underway an active PhD program with joint supervisors from the two partners. 

The partnership is based on an agile and highly-integrated collaborative model. This has helped to create a dynamic and flexible environment bringing together established drug-development capability with high-quality basic, translational and clinical research.  

 "With GLAZgo we've managed to set up a structure which embraces the complexity of drug discovery and that fully integrates the robust industry approach with the more open questioning of academic medicine. That we have access to the whole of the Institute of Infection, Immunology and Inflammation at the University of Glasgow brings even greater strength to the collaboration," Maarten Kraan, head of Respiratory, Inflammation & Autoimmune diseases Innovative Medicines unit at Astra Zeneca, said in a statement.

According to Kraan, partnerships or collaborations where focus and projects can be quickly adapted based on project need and the latest breaking science are rare.

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