Building Collaboration in the BRC

November 10, 2009

Mary C. (Cindy) Farach-Carson, Ph.D.Associate Vice Provost for ResearchProfessor of Biochemistry and Cell

Biology

Building Collaboration in the BRC

Fostering Collaboration to Cure Disease: Translational Cancer Research is Multidisciplinary

Creation of cell lines from patient specimens for basic research; tissue engineering in 3-D matrices (hydrogels)

Co-culture and in vivo models for pre-clinical studies using patient derived cancer and normal cells: changes in gene expression

Microarrays and Micro RNA arrays for gene expression studies in patients; gene and oligonucleotide therapy; gene discovery with personalized genetic registries (huge data mining projects)

Novel protein biomarker discovery for improved prognostic indicators; improved radiation therapies (algorithms for risk assessment; imaging)

Tissue arrays for protein expression; correlation of biomarkers with disease states [tissue procurement and data mining: CPRIT priority]

Pre-clinical studies using animal models (toxicology, dosing, side effects) prior to human subjects trials (typically mouse): modeling

Nanotechnology and novel drug carriers Infectious disease and metabolic engineering Bioinformatics and database construction and mining More!

BRC Floor by Floor: Where Are We?Rice researchers from Bioengineering, Biochemistry

and Cell Biology, and Chemistry have moved into floors 3-8

250 Researchers in Building; 19 PIs and 5 more moving in fall, 2009

Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) will occupy half of floor 8 (lease signed). UTMDACC in conversation about the other BRC space

Diana Welch, Operations Director, and the Governance Committee have working plans for security, floor access for research needs, safety, transportation, communication, and building operations.

Conference rooms and shared use areas are opening, and a web-based reservation procedure is being instituted.

Classrooms (5) are open.

Floor by Floor: Where Are We?Staff in building include faculty, research staff,

postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists and graduate and undergraduate students

Grand Opening Symposium planning underway for April, 2010

AAAS Regional Meeting in April, 2010Shared Equipment Authority (SEA) developing new

plans for sharing equipment in Collaborative Model including 2nd Floor Core Mass Spec and BioImaging Facility

The 2nd floor, still under construction, will house a cafe/coffee bar, the TMC Digital Library, a satellite vivarium

VWR will host an in house stockroom for laboratory supplies on 1st floor

Melding Cultures in the Rice BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) & TMC

Partners

Sourcebook for Sustainable Agriculture

Patient Care and Treatment Options

Basic Research Education and Outreach

Clinical Research & Clinical Trials

Translation

Goals and Ideas

Obtain key equipment for translational infrastructure including resources for computation in life sciences

Visualization laboratory in BRCInvolve students, postdocs, residents in translational cancer

research at Rice and TMC partnersCreate translational research course at Rice involving TMC partnersSubmit multi-investigator research and training grant proposals

based on above activities (hired Director of Proposal Development in Research Office to help with these; starts Jan 1, 2010)

Involve Rice in CPRIT (with GCC and TMC partners)Put in place templates, research agreements, IRB protocols, IACUC

protocols, etc to make multi-disciplinary, multi-investigator projects easier to submit “Researchers Toolbox”

Forge partnerships with area biotech and commerical industries to foster “discovery to recovery”

Involving Students in Translational Research

Transforming undergraduate and graduate education to think about solving big world problems and how education and research naturally interface.

Attracting new researchers to translational research at the graduate level. This should include cutting edge basic science research that can be applied to real world problems.

Effecting Change: Clinic and Basic

Multidisciplinary clinical centers

New degree programs; courses

Tenure expectations

Release time Comprehensive care using “bench to bedside and back” model is the norm

Institutional transformation

Large center grants involving multiple institutions

Clinic

Academic

Single institution

Multiple institution

Challenges & Opportunities• Time/ scheduling issues (researchers & clinicians)

• Sharing resources (scheduling & maintenance support )

• Development of IP (ownership)

• Partnering with biotech & commercial industry (publication vs. profit)

• Personnel & employment issues

• Liability issues

• Resistance to change (all levels)

• Communication

What They Say…..“A few weeks back we were introduced to a five year-$75M program in the area of radiation sensors that is an ideal fit for our lab. We did not know of this program till this visit transpired.”

John McDevitt, Ph.D.

Brown-Wiess Professor of

Chemistry and Bioengineering

What They Say…..“ While I was in the clinic last week, I

connected with another physician in the department who has some common interest in biomarker selection.  She and I got to talking and are now meeting regularly to think about another  collaboration.  These interactions happened before, but with lower frequency and they required a lot more energy on my part.  I finally feel like I am part of the medical center!  And I think we are just beginning to see the benefits. ”

Rebecca Richards-

Kortum, Ph.D.Stanley C. Moore

Professor of Bioengineering

What They Say…..“Combining quality and quantity of space with location, I think there’s probably not a better building for translational bioengineering research in the country right now.”

Rebekah Drezek, Ph.D.

Professor of Bioengineering

We have the Place, Come on Over!

Open House Friday noon-3