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Winter 2003

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Around the Pond

The bright idea: UMass Amherst and Baystate Medical Center

Judson Brown




	WATERSHED MOMENTS: at right, Senator Edward Kennedy speaks at the opening of the Biomedical Research Institute.

THE 21st CENTURY BELONGS to the life sciences,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy at the November opening ceremonies of the Baystate Medical Center-University of Massachusetts Amherst Biomedical Research Institute in Springfield. The event was hailed as a watershed moment for both institutions as well as for Springfield’s – and the region’s – economy.

Kennedy said “enormous economic opportunity” awaits those who can translate advances in biological knowledge into practical improvements in medical diagnosis and treatment that could benefit everyone’s quality of life.

The event drew several hundred political, business, academic and medical leaders, most notably Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose presence was seen as a symbolic boost to the effort.

The renovated three-story building, a former factory, contains 17,000 square feet of laboratory and research space; 25,000 square feet of commercial incubator space; and 33,000 square feet for expansion. The renovation has cost $8 million to date, with $3 million from the federal government, $2.5 million from the state and the rest from Baystate.

The institute, the first of its kind in western Massachusetts, provides a venue for research projects by interdisciplinary teams of university researchers and hospital doctors, who will cross-fertilize basic science with clinical expertise, tissue banks and patient databases.

The opening marks a milestone in the collaboration between the two institutions that began seven years ago as the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Initiative. Some 50 joint research projects have already been launched. An integrated life sciences building on the Amherst campus is also envisioned. The Commonwealth has committed $7.5 million in the current budget to the initiative; and UMass has borrowed $25 million to date, with plans to borrow another $26 million, according to James Cahill, the university’s director of facilities.

A breast cancer research team combining scientists from the UMass Molecular and Cellular Biology Program and surgical oncology staff from Baystate is the institute’s first resident project. The incubator’s first commercial tenant, Biomedical Research Models Inc., which focuses on diabetes treatments, is relocating from Worcester.

NIH is the leading source of funds anywhere for medical-related research, and currently underwrites about $13 million of $93 million in sponsored research at the university. Researchers hope that the new institute will help leverage substantially more funding from NIH, as well as from private industry.

NIH Director Zerhouni agreed with the institute’s director, Lawrence M. Schwartz, a UMass biology professor, who described the UMass-Baystate collaboration as a “new paradigm for biomedical research.” Said Zerhouni, “You come up with bright ideas and we’ll be right behind you.”

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