Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that it has formed a strategic scientific collaboration with the University of Southern California (USC) Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience to create an Agilent Center of Excellence (CoE) in Biomolecular Characterization. The center will be housed in Michelson Hall, which opened at the university in October 2017. A research facility, the aim of the center is to establish a convergence of researchers across science and engineering to work together on multidisciplinary approaches for the development of improved health care through new drugs, diagnostics, and medical devices. The Agilent CoE will provide a collaborative scientific environment with access to new Agilent instrumentation and technologies for undergraduate and graduate students, local customers, and offer broad exposure to researchers who are leaders in their respective fields. Key to the Agilent CoE will be a collaboration with renowned USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience principal investigator Dr. Valery Fokin. Research at the Fokin lab at USC focuses on chemical reactivity and biological interactions at the molecular level. The lab will contribute to multiple collaborative drug discovery projects ranging from chemical synthesis of screening and focused libraries and biological assay implementation to the development of targeted drug delivery systems, diagnostics, and vaccines.