Facts & Figures

• Approximately $600 million in annual expenditures
• An additional $300 million in annual economic impact
• 8,000+ employees
• 500+ MDs
• 200+ PhDs
• 750,000+ annual patient visits

Developments and Accomplishments of BNMC Institutions

Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus researchers developed the first:

• Internal cardiac pacemaker
• Beta-interferon therapy for treating Multiple Sclerosis
• High throughput methods for automated crystal screening for proteomics and structural genomics
• Nicorette® Smoking Cessation Gum
• Vaccine for hemophilus influenza
• Fetal Viability Test to determine if expectant mothers are at risk for developing high blood pressure
• Screening test for phenylketonuria
• Sickle cell screening test
• Surfactant replacement drug – Infasurf-Neonatal – for neonatal respiratory distress syndrome
• Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test
• RPMI (Serum-free cell culture medium)
• Image enhancement device for biplan angiography
• Photodynamic therapy

• Buffalo's only Nobel Laureate
• Houses the American Crystallographic Association (ACA), an organization that has over 2300 members worldwide who study atomic matter
• Home to a unique high throughput robotic screening facility. Since its inception, the facility has been used to conduct over 7.7 million experiments on 5000 samples provided by 550 investigators from around the world. This laboratory is unique in that its services are publicly available to researchers throughout the world.
• In 2003, when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emerged as a highly infectious and deadly disease HWI scientists jumped at the opportunity to partner with ZeptoMetrix, a local biotechnology company and Virionyx, a biopharmaceutical company in New Zealand to research the virus and help develop a passive-vaccine.
• Recently, new arthritis medications have been taken off the market due to adverse side effects. HWI scientists are working to provide insight into how non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) affect the inflammatory process which may lead to development of new medications to treat rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and other inflammatory disease with fewer side effects.
• In recent years, infectious diseases have become more difficult to treat with antibiotics, as antibiotic resistance becomes an increasing public health problem. HWI is conducting research that is studying the structure and function of certain enzymes that synthesize antibiotics perhaps allowing the engineering of these proteins for the production of a new generation of drugs.

• Pioneering studies on the effects of smoking and lung cancer
• The development of photodynamic therapy and the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test
• Edible plant vaccine study - a phase I clinical trial was completed to test the safety & immunogenecity of the world's first potential oral vaccine against the Hepatitis B virus, a major risk for liver cancer worldwide
• First analysis of a group of African American patients to identify mutations associated with a hereditary form of CRC (colorectal cancer)
• Current study looks at a potential vaccine for prostate cancer through the development of a technique to collect relevant cells from the blood of a prostate cancer patient to identify antigens against the tumor

• In top 10 National Super-computer Centers
• AAU membership as a public University
• Women's health initiative Vanguard center

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