A plan to create LI's own Silicon Valley

By linking Long Island's leading research institutes, Sen. Charles Schumer hopes for no less than development of the region's own Silicon Valley.

The New York Democrat has brokered a partnership among Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National and Cold Spring Harbor laboratories, to be announced Monday. Its goals: Attract more federal grants and private donations than the facilities could get individually, then use that money to commercialize breakthroughs and create jobs.

"The potential here is breathtaking," Schumer said by phone Sunday. "What we've seen is that when you have strong academic institutions and they come together to create new science, things can really take off."

California's Silicon Valley and Massachusetts's Route 128 corridor are examples of successful "regional innovation clusters" -- a concept the Obama administration embraces. Schumer has invited the White House's working group on the matter to visit Long Island and to help with funding efforts.

The three partners will collaborate on biomedical, clean energy and life science research. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is renowned for its DNA work; Stony Brook was a leader in research that developed the MRI machine; Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists have won numerous Nobel Prizes in the last decade.

The partnership is being aided by billionaire financier Jim Simons, a former Stony Brook math department head whose role in the project is to help match ideas with funding.

"We have a history of working together at the level of individual scientists," said Sam Aronson, Brookhaven's director. "But this is looking to put something together from a more institutional level, to benefit from the complimentary strengths we have."

The formalized working arrangement will allow for a more organized attack on bigger problems, Aronson added. He doesn't believe the new administrative layer will discourage present scientist-to-scientist dialogues. "That will only add to things we can do," he said.

Stony Brook University's president, Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr., said in a statement that Schumer's move to establish the research triumvirate as a target for federal support was a "welcome and timely pledge."

Discussions to form such a cluster have gone on for several years. Schumer said Washington's current encouragement makes for good timing. "This has the potential to be one of the most exciting job developments on Long Island since the defense industry in the 1930s," the senator said.