YORK is flaunting its world class bio-science capability in America today.

A Bioscience York team has flown to San Diego to market the city's burgeoning bioscience cluster at BIO 2001, the massive biotech exhibition expected to lure 10,000 visitors from 40 nations.

Bioscience York is a leading UK public and private sector partnership representing more than 2,000 life scientists and 40 companies in the York area with expertise in drug development, plant biotechnology, health sciences and food sciences.

The team members, including Anna Rooke, project manager for Science City York and Dr Linda Naylor, the bioscience exploitation manager of the White Rose federation of Yorkshire universities have given themselves a busy schedule.

Apart from marketing our region's research, technical facilities and growing bioscience companies at the exhibition today and tomorrow, they have scheduled meetings with officials from the City of Denver, the Iowa Department of Trade and the Canadian High Commission to explore future bioscience partnership opportunities.

The team, which has joined up with partners from Manchester, Newcastle and the South of England in the UK@Bio pavilion, has been joined by a number of representatives from York's bioscience companies as part of the DTI mission.

They include fast-growing firms such as Pharmalicensing Ltd and the Centre for Biomedical Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CBAMS) as well as York-based group research centre for medical devices experts Smith & Nephew.

Anna Rooke said: "It is essential that York makes its presence felt at events such as this to claim our deserved place on the world stage."