|
By Eric Dahl
edahl@uga.edu
At its April 26 meeting, University Council approved the establishment of a Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute at UGA. The Institute proposal, signed by more than 70 research faculty, had earlier received strong support in the Franklin College Senate and a letter of unanimous backing from the deans. Harry Dailey, professor of microbiology and biochemistry, drafted the proposal and led the effort to gain its approval.
“I think most people understand that science today is increasingly interdisciplinary and continually involves new kinds of research interactions,” says Dailey. “The institute will be one of the places where scientists can experiment with new interdisciplinary approaches to biomedical research. This will create new discoveries, new research-funding opportunities and new curricula. Among its many roles, the institute can be an incubator for new interdisciplinary programs.”
The institute will have at least three separate divisions: molecular medicine, infectious disease and immunity, and public health. The proposal is an outcome of the Biomedical Sciences and Human Health Initiative, which identified ways to promote interdisciplinary collaboration in research focused on biomedical, behavioral and social issues. The executive committee for the initiative, chaired by Stuart Feldman of pharmacy, recommended last fall that UGA form an interdisciplinary institute to improve faculty linkages, create interdisciplinary graduate programs and provide a stronger profile for UGA in these fields.
“Outside the university, people don’t realize the amount and quality of the biomedical research going on at this campus,” Feldman says. “The institute will help get this message out to the federal and private funding agencies, to the top scientists and graduate students we are recruiting, and to the Georgia legislators and other leaders who have supported us.”
Rebecca Mullis, head of the foods and nutrition department and a member of the same committee, says, “The initiative process allowed us to really see our collective strengths across campus in relation to the health paradigm and to understand that we needed an internal means to coordinate these strengths as we seek to add a clinical dimension in collaboration with MCG and other institutions.”
“We have stellar faculty in the biomedical and health sciences, and they have worked selflessly during the past year to create a new research institute that will coalesce their strengths,” says Provost Karen Holbrook. |
|
