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Blue Ribbon Report Update

November 8, 2006

Last year, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation's Blue Ribbon Task Force outlined a strategy for our community's future that relies on building a world-class urban research university to drive the region's growing life science industries.

In authoring its "Time to Get it Right" report, the task force concluded the life sciences hold the region's greatest promise for economic growth and humanitarian contribution.

By implementing the components of this plan, Kansas City will take its place among the top life sciences centers in the country. The University of Kansas Medical Center will continue to play a central role in this regard by becoming one of the top 25 medical centers in basic life sciences and one of the top 50 in research and development. This commitment to excellence will ensure a robust partnership with the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and strengthened collaboration with Kansas City’s area hospitals, providing new opportunities for conducting clinical research and clinical care programs.

KUMC has outlined a number of initiatives needed to build its basic life sciences research capacity. These objectives represent a long-term vision that will take nearly a decade to fully realize, but marked advancements have already been made to that end.

Since the Task Force’s report last November, KUMC has made significant progress toward meeting the recommended goals. Progress can be measured by these results:

  1. Add 30 senior faculty and 50 junior faculty over the next five years: In the last year, 17 additional research faculty have been recruited, 10 to basic science departments and 7 to clinical departments. The university has also recruited six senior faculty, establishing the pace to realize this goal in the recommended timeframe.

  2. Achieve National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center designation: The effort to build a comprehensive cancer center received a significant boost during the 2005 legislative session, when Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the Kansas Legislature appropriated $5 million to the KU Cancer Center, which Gov. Sebelius requested the Legislature fund annually. Lawmakers also created a mechanism to allow taxpayers to make a voluntary contribution to the KU Cancer Center’s breast cancer program via their income tax forms. In addition, a comprehensive business plan for the KU Cancer Center was developed and the Midwest Cancer Alliance was defined. These efforts demonstrate progress toward achieving NCI designation.

  3. Add 40 postdoctoral students: The National Institutes of Health awarded the medical center a postdoctoral training program in Environmental Toxicology that will add four postdoctoral students. In addition, the MD/Ph.D. program has received two private foundation grants that will increase the number of MD/Ph.D students accepted into the program to six to eight students per year. Prior acceptance rates averaged approximately two to three students per year for the program.

  4. Double overall Research and Development and NIH funding in next five years: During the past year, funding from the National Institutes of Health increased 21 percent and overall funding increased 10 percent. If this pace continues, the five-year target will be met.

  5. Work with the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Midwest Research Institute, the University of Missouri-Columbia and other universities to create a top-25 bioinformatics research program: KUMC's Bioinformatics core has linked with eight other universities in the state of Kansas via a TeleResearch network.

  6. Work with KU, the University of Missouri and other universities to create a high-quality bioengineering program: KUMC has begun work with KU Lawrence to develop bioengineering collaborations through joint recruitment in the area of Neurorehabilitation and is considering establishing a Neurorehabilitation Institute. KU-Lawrence is developing a postgraduate and doctoral program in bioengineering and KUMC personnel have assisted in faculty recruitment for the department.

  7. Create strong alliances with St. Luke’s, Children’s Mercy, Truman Medical Center, and University of Missouri-Kansas City to align KUMC with Kansas City’s clinical and translational research centers: Community partnership discussions with representatives from the Stowers Institute, the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, KU Hospital, St. Luke's Hospitals and Children's Mercy Hospitals, chaired by Barbara Atkinson, were initiated in 2006 and are ongoing. The focus of these discussions is on developing academic partnerships between the institutions. For instance, a partnership between the KUMC Kidney institute and the Bone Biology program at UMKC is being developed. In fact, a UMKC-KUMC Schools of Medicine Partnership Commission was formed to develop a roadmap that would establish and sustain ongoing collaborations between faculty and the institutions in keeping with the missions and strengths of each institution. Several meetings have led to the establishment of research focus groups targeting the following areas: women’s health, tobacco prevention, bioinformatics, pulmonology/asthma, bone biology, genetics/pharmacogenetics, liver, and neuroscience. Finally, the medical center has also initiated an obesity program with Children's Mercy.