AT THE END OF AN UNASSUMING TREE-LINED ROAD off a mostly residential area of Masonboro Loop in Wilmington, you’ll find one of the most advanced biotechnology centers on the east coast.

Within CREST Research Park, operated by UNC-Wilmington, scientists, aquaculturists, entrepreneurs and faculty are working on studies, cultivation and products with potential to make waves on a global scale. The collaborative public-private relationship at CREST is certainly intentional. It’s a place where start-ups and established firms alike can come together to work alongside approximately 80 researchers from Marine Biology in North Carolina (MARBIONC) and UNCW’s Center for Marine Science.

That connection has apparently paid off.

Earlier this year, UNCW and MARBIONC were included in the top tier of a competitive $250 million funding pool by the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals to develop biopharmaceutical manufacturing here in the United States. The inclusion will certainly assist with research opportunities, but it will also continue CREST’s goal of driving economic development.

The facility already works with local companies like Alcami, which develops and manufactures pharmaceuticals, on processes that involve aquatic life and IKA Works, which makes laboratory equipment.

And MARBIONC played a major role in the development of a drug used to treat cystic fibrosis through its research into a strain of algae whose neurotoxins counteract the “Red Tide”-causing varieties.

CREST also hosts the lab space for research and development entrepreneurs like Jennifer McCall (above left), whose company, SeaTox Research Inc., began in another UNCW venture—the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The company is developing a streamlined process for testing toxins in shellfish.

SeaTox recently began selling a prototype testing kit to the general public. SeaTox also provides contract research services to local businesses using its expertise in microbiology and cell biology.

In addition to MARBIONC’s nearly 70,000 square foot research and leasable lab space—a combination aimed at moving ideas from the lab to the marketplace—CREST houses the Center for Marine Science, which is training students in a variety of related industries, and a shellfish research hatchery.