Virginia Bio conference. G Marrano photo

virginiabio is a statewide trade association for the bio-tech industry and this year its bi-annual conference is being held at Hotel Roanoke. During a panel discussion this morning Brett Malone, who oversees the Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg, outlined a vision for downtown Roanoke. Both at the CRC adjacent to Virginia Tech and near the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute in Roanoke federal funding will be used to build “wet lab” shared spaces designed to attract bio-tech startups to the region.