University
Launches Half-a-Billion Dollar Research Initiative Aimed at
Health Science
By Robert
Sanders, Public Affairs
Posted October 6, 1999
Launching a bold new effort to understand and solve today's major health problems, Berkeley is redefining health science research by uniting physical and biological scientists and engineers.
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Sparked by a revolution in which physical tools increasingly are applied to the biological sciences in areas such as non-invasive imaging, microscopy and nanotechnology, Berkeley plans to involve as many as 400 researchers -- from fields including the biological sciences, public health, psychology, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and computer science -- in interdisciplinary research. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also will participate in this collaborative effort.
"We're setting the national agenda for the next century," said Robert Tjian, one of the leaders of the initiative and a professor in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology. "This is a major shift in what biologists have traditionally done. Modern biologists of the 21st century will have to embrace all these other areas, because many of tomorrow's important breakthroughs in biology will occur at the convergence of these diverse fields."
"The advantages to society are enormous," said Daniel E. Koshland Jr., professor and biochemist who also is heading up the initiative. "Our goal of encouraging interaction among many disciplines, from physics to psychology, is a wonderful challenge.
The central focus of this half-a-billion dollar initiative will be proposed new facilities to be built at a cost of some $300 million, the bulk of it to come from private donations. The campus already has raised $124 million of that amount in private and public funds, of which $50 million -- the single largest gift ever received by Berkeley -- came this summer from an anonymous donor. An additional $200 million spent on new faculty hires, equipment and research will bring the initiative's total cost to more than $500 million.
These new facilities will house many of the new tools and technologies being applied to the health sciences. These tools include gene chips, cryo-electron microscopes, bioMEMS, novel materials, state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imagers and parallel computers.
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Immunologist James Allison, for example, was interested in how the cells of the immune system work, but that curiosity led him to a new immune therapy that soon will enter clinical trials against prostate cancer and melanoma.
Physical chemist Alexander Pines made his reputation developing novel techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance for the study of molecules and materials, but his work has also led to advances in medical applications of diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging.
And mechanical engineer Lisa Pruitt is applying her interest in how plastic polymers break down under repeated stress to a growing medical problem, the breakdown of artificial joints.
Traditionally, such health care advances have come from medical schools. But today, some of the most exciting work in biomedicine is happening at the boundary of disciplines not found on a typical medical campus.
"Broad-based universities like UC Berkeley can bring to the health care table something that most medical schools cannot -- physicists, chemists and engineers trained on the edge of biology and eager to work closely with health scientists," said Chancellor Berdahl. "One of Berkeley's core goals is that our research serve the public trust, and this new initiative will enhance and prolong people's lives."
In the past, Berkeley has not been viewed as a health sciences campus, although much of the research on campus has a biomedical connection. Clear evidence of that connection was the $129.5 million in research funds given to Berkeley in fiscal year 1998-99 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That amount represents 44 percent of all federal research dollars to the campus.
"All these fields can have an interest in health, and that is where the real opportunities lie," said Edward Penhoet, dean of the School of Public Health and one of the founders of biotechnology giant Chiron Corp. "We can work to facilitate the transfer of new breakthroughs into practice."
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"One of Berkeley's core goals is that our research serve the public trust, and this new initiative will enhance and prolong people's lives." -Chancellor Berdahl
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Berkeley's interdisciplinary approach advanced again last year with the establishment of a new Department of Bioengineering -- the first step in the plan for a unique two-campus department with UCSF. Berkeley engineers and UCSF physicians have collaborated on biomedical research for decades. The department expands and focuses education in the field and opens new avenues for progress in imaging, design of artificial tissues and joints, bioMEMS, minimally invasive surgery and other areas.
Research in neuroscience and protein structure -- two large academic concentrations on campus -- also have been traditional sources of fundamental findings for advances in medical treatment.
Berkeley students will benefit from the Health Sciences Initiative, which will require a rethinking of undergraduate science education. Students preparing for health science research will need knowledge of a broad range of disciplines, not just biology, and cutting-edge training in everything from bioinformatics -- the science of mining databases like the Human Genome Project -- to gene profiling.
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The NIH also is investing more money in research that utilizes the results of the Human Genome Project, a joint effort by NIH and Department of Engergy that promises to sequence the full human genome by next year. Once the sequencing is done, someone must translate a gene defect's linkage with a disease into how that defect actually causes the disease. Berkeley has some of the best scientists to take on this task.
For example, computer scientists and bioengineers are working to develop the necessary computational tools to manipulate the large databases being created by the genome project. The Health Sciences Initiative also will emphasize genomics and proteomics -- the study of genes and proteins, respectively, as causes or cures of disease.
Berkeley can lead the way through its close proximity to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Koshland said. Collaborations are planned with its medical imaging group and its Physical Biosciences Division, headed by chemist Graham Fleming. The two-year-old division was designed to foster stronger interactions with the campus in the physical and biological sciences.
Tjian emphasizes that the initiative is not just a theoretical reorganization. Rather, it creates a new level of interaction on campus -- a "lab without walls" -- that people and departments care enough about to pool their efforts, money and space. Even the College of Natural Resources, traditionally oriented toward agriculture and plant biology, is eager to participate in the initiative.
"This initiative is more than anything about synergy," Penhoet added. "It's about departments working together to advance health care in the next century."
New Facilities
The new facilities slated for the east end of campus will combine biomedical and health sciences research, bringing together molecular biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, infectious disease and cancer experts, and public health specialists.
A research building proposed for the site where Stanley Hall is now will house programs in molecular engineering and bioengineering, where engineers, chemists and physicists will work alongside molecular biologists and medical doctors. An anonymous donor has contributed $50 million to construction of this building, with an additional $10 million coming from Intel co-founder and chairman emeritus Gordon Moore. State funds total an additional $24 million.
October 6 - 12,
1999 (Volume 28, Number 9)
Copyright 1999, The Regents of the University of
California.
Produced and maintained by the Office
of Public Affairs
at UC
Berkeley.
Comments? E-mail berkeleyan@pa.urel.berkeley.edu.