LOS ANGELES, CA, September 14 -- National LambdaRail Chairman and CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., today announced the appointment of Arizona State University President, Michael M. Crow, as head of a new Chairman's Advisory Council. The purpose of the new Council will be to help guide the new mission of National LambdaRail (NLR), the 12,000 mile high performance communications network linking the nation's leading research institutions. NLR announced in July that it had received a U.S. $100 million guarantee from the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health to upgrade and extend its network to support big science projects.

Dr. Soon-Shiong described NLR's enhanced mission as twofold: first, to integrate the science around advanced communications networks under a new affiliated body called the National Advanced Networks Alliance (NANTA); and second, to utilize such advanced networks for practical application, beginning with the translation of new medical science into new clinical practice via a Clinical Translational Science Network (CTSN). He explained that NANTA will bring together all major centers around the country to integrate new network technologies, such as intelligent switch technologies, semiconductors, broadband and high performance computing. Working with leading hardware and wireless providers, NLR and NANTA will create the world's largest test bed for developing integrated next generation network tools to advance the digital revolution.

For the medical science aspect of the new mission, CTSN will utilize the extended infrastructure of which NLR is now a part - linked with genomic sequencing centers, data storage centers and high performance computing facilities - to integrate basic research, clinical research and clinical medicine, thereby bringing the most up to date scientific findings and the power of supercomputing quickly to the point of care. The first use cases for CTSN will be cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

"Michael Crow is the perfect person to lead the advisory council for this ambitious mission," said Soon-Shiong. "He is the most innovative university leader in the country, and he is a founder member of Gig.U., the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project, which was set up in July to accelerate the deployment of ultra high speed networks among universities."

"I applaud the mission of the new NLR," said President Michael Crow. "This is exactly the kind of initiative we need to maintain and enhance the economic competitiveness of our universities and our country. I am delighted to be a part of it."

Additional members of the Advisory Council will be announced in due course, including presidents of other U.S. universities. A U.K. group of advisors will be led by Sir Richard Sykes, former Rector of Imperial College London, former Chairman and Chief Executive of GlaxoSmithKline, and former Chairman of NHS London, the largest health authority in the U.K.

About NLR

National LambdaRail is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization founded by the research and education community. It connects over 280 universities and federal laboratories, who use NLR's 12,000 miles of high performance optical fiber in the United States, and its connections to overseas networks, for leading edge research. Users include NASA, NOAA and NIH. With very high availability, a choice of next generation network services and applications, and customized support for individual researchers and projects, NLR creates opportunities for collaboration, innovation and commercialization among the global research community, and public and private partners. For more information please visit www.nlr.net.

Source: National LambdaRail