
Ron Niece
Consultant, Research Resources & Technologies
Ron grew up in the Midwest (Ohio) and was educated in Illinois (Blackburn College, Biology) and Wisconsin (University of Wisconsin, Genetics) where, after a post-doctoral year in Philadelphia (Institute for Cancer Research), he worked at the University of Wisconsin in the Department of Physiological Chemistry and Oncology and then started core facilities in the University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center (UWBC). In California, Ron joined the core facilities at the University of California, Irvine, and later ran laboratories at Meyer Pharmaceuticals, LLC.
Core facilities were rare in the 1980s. Part of Ron’s role in the UWBC was to establish a network of core facilities like the Center’s own laboratories. Ron and several accomplices, who also were involved in the nascent area of core facilities, pooled ideas and initially gathered as Research Resource Facilities which morphed into the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities in 1989. The rest is history.
Thanks to the UWBC for the opportunities to help with ABRF and to all of the hundreds of people who joined me in this journey.