Jan. 20--AbbVie and the University of Illinois have partnered to open an innovation center on the university's Urbana-Champaign campus, officials said.
The AbbVie Innovation Center, housed in a building in the university's research park, will employ at least 18 undergraduate and graduate students part time throughout the year to work on projects intended to help North Chicago-based AbbVie identify new areas of research. Students will use informatics, text mining and other analytics software to make connections in medical research, among other tasks. Eight students are already working on information-technology projects, the initial focus of the center, and AbbVie is planning to hire more.
"The AbbVie Innovation Center will give our students the opportunity to be at the forefront of information technologies for leading-edge therapies that can make a difference in people's lives," Chancellor Phyllis Wise said. "Such real-world experiences are examples of the transformative educational opportunities at Illinois that grow from our leadership in engineering, big data and biomedical sciences."
AbbVie, a biopharmaceutical company, was spun off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013.
This is the company's first collaboration with a university on information technology related to research and development, said Allison Scherer, director of R communications. The center launched in September, but students only recently moved into their permanent work space, she said.
The majority of the students are computer science majors who will work at the center around class schedules. The campus is a five-minute bus ride from the engineering campus, Scherer said.
"Innovation and good ideas can come from anywhere," Scherer said, "and AbbVie is passionate about working with others to help patients."
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