 USC Neurogenetic Institute |
Potent Medicine
Currently, more than 35 faculty members in the Keck School individually receive more than $1 million in annual federal research funding. Examples of significant grants received by Keck School faculty in the past year include:• Nearly $30 million from the National Cancer Institute awarded over five years to biochemist Peter A. Jones;
• $22 million from the National Institutes of Health, awarded over five years to support researcher Brian E. Henderson’s study of the genetic susceptibility to cancer in different races; and
• More than $9 million from the National Institute on Aging, awarded over three years for neurologist Helena Chui’s research into brain aging.
These gains notwithstanding, the Keck School currently has only five departments whose federal research funding places them in the Top 30 nationwide: preventive medicine stands at No. 1; ophthalmology ranks seventh; pediatrics, ninth; neurology, 16th; and medicine, 26th.“To be a truly great medical school,” notes Ryan, “we need more of our 23 departments to have high national standing in research funding. That is now a key priority.”The biggest impediment to attracting faculty and grants is a tight limit on available research space. “Until new and renovated research space becomes available, expanding our existing programs and recruiting new high-quality faculty remains a major challenge,” Ryan says. The first steps to address this pressing need were taken with the fall 2000 groundbreaking for the Neurogenetic Institute – the first of four planned new research facilities. Soon to follow will be the Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower. Early planning has also begun for a heart and transplantation institute and a biosciences research center. A concurrent effort, led by the Keck School’s board of overseers, calls for developing a biomedical research park adjacent to the campus. Marching in lock-step with this Keck School construction boom is an ambitious program of lab upgrading over the next four to 10 years. “The majority of our research labs were built in the 1960s,” says Ryan. “Replacement of our woefully outdated research spaces is every bit as important as buildings for our new strategic initiatives.” At a September 2001 meeting, Ryan told department chairs it would cost an estimated $175 million to replace the nine research buildings now occupied by Keck School faculty. “Our current faculty investigators have done a tremendous job, despite the limitations facing them,” says Ryan. “They are the foundation that gives me confidence and makes our goal of becoming a Top-10 school achievable.”Aping Humans
A crusty, 47-year-old former alpha male named Toto is the unlikely chaperone instructing toddlers Jean, Jake and Zoe in the niceties of
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housing juveniles accidentally killed a baby in 1999 – have a rocky road ahead as they’re re-integrated into the adult community. Zookeepers don’t exaggerate, says USC primatologist Craig Stanford, when they describe chimps as having personality traits as distinct as humans. “In the old days, there was a reluctance to acknowledge it, but today [we know] that chimps do share the same basic human emotions,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Are we reading too much into it? I think, for most of history, we’ve been reading too little into it.”
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