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The Ohio
University Heritage College of Osteopathic
Medicine (OU-HCOM) celebrated the
beginning of a new era in medical
research Saturday, May 8, with the
official grand opening of the
Osteopathic Heritage Foundations and
Charles R. and Marilyn Y. Stuckey
Academic and Research Center (ARC).
More than
300 donors, friends of the college,
community members and OU-HCOM faculty,
students and staff gathered on that
cool, breezy morning for the gala event,
which included remarks from Richard
Vincent on behalf of the Osteopathic
Heritage Foundations (OHF) and from
Charles R. and Marilyn Y. Stuckey. The
OHF and the Stuckeys are the two major
benefactors of the project.
Donors
cut ribbons with commemorative gold
engraved scissors at more than 30 named
spaces, guests toured the building,
medical students presented research
poster presentations and engineering
students conducted class project
demonstrations.
During
his remarks, Vincent, who is president
and CEO of the Osteopathic Heritage
Foundations, emphasized the
organization’s proud support of the
project and the tremendous potential for
growth in research programs that this
new facility brings to OU-HCOM and the
university as a whole.
“Through
our collective efforts, we should be
able to make this Ohio’s
university: an essential asset to
the local communities and the state, a
destination-of-choice for higher
education and an enterprise of
distinction for research,” said Vincent.
“It doesn’t need to be the largest or
the most centrally located. It simply
needs the collective commitment of the
faculty, staff, administration and board
… regardless of any limitations and
challenges we may face.”
The ARC
project was born from the vision of Ohio
University President Roderick J. McDavis.
At an OU-HCOM Advisory Board Meeting, Jack
Brose, D.O.,
dean of OU-HCOM, argued for a new
facility for college research. Mr.
Vincent enthusiastically supported this
idea, and expanded the vision of
OU-HCOM’s future with significant
emphasis on research in addition to
medical education and community service.
Knowing that the Russ College was also
planning to develop a new but separate
facility for engineering education, McDavis, also on the college’s advisory
board, suggested combining the colleges’
efforts. Considering the growing
momentum of collaborative research
between the two colleges, the
partnership made perfect sense.
“In an
era in which medical science and
engineering are working to create
biomedical engineering and are creating
biomedical discoveries every day, an
academic facility that takes away
boundaries between these two disciplines
is the next logical step,” McDavis said.
According to Brose, the shared space
will foster new cross-disciplinary
research. “Research collaborations are
impromptu,” he said. “They come from
people standing in a hallway and
talking, going together to a conference,
or just bumping into each other. More
ideas will likely come from meeting
someone in the café than from formal
meetings.”
The
89,000-square-foot building was designed
to encourage such interactions. It
features a spacious atrium with a café
area and a variety of alcoves and other
informal meeting spaces, in addition to
classrooms and conference rooms.
The
building’s specialized research
corridors, with connected, “suite-style”
laboratories were built to promote
collaborative efforts between
researchers. Eight researchers from
OU-HCOM and two from the Russ College
conduct their work in the ARC.
The 22
laboratory spaces are located on the
second and third floors, with one floor
devoted to diabetes research and one
floor devoted to cancer research.
This
facility is expected to boost the
university’s growing research efforts in
cancer, diabetes and related illnesses,
according to Brose. Largely
due to the new drug, Somavert®,
developed by OU-HCOM researcher John Kopchick, Ph.D., Ohio University ranks
as the top public university in Ohio,
and among the top in the nation, for
research royalties. Forbes
magazine recently ranked Ohio University
fourth in the nation for research
returns on investment.
“Because
of the creativity and foresight of our
faculty, and because of the overwhelming
generosity of our donors, I can safety
say this is only the beginning,” Brose
said. “Within
these walls, OU-HCOM and the Russ College
researchers are working together on new
technologies and medications that will
dramatically change how doctors treat
diabetes mellitus and currently
incurable cancers.”
According
to Kelly McCall, Ph.D., OU-HCOM
assistant professor of endocrinology,
the building is already making a
difference. She now shares lab space
with her main collaborator, Frank
Schwartz, M.D., the J.O. Watson, D.O.,
Endowed Diabetes Research Chair.
“I have
already developed two papers with Dr.
Schwartz since we moved into this
building. Doing something that
efficiently wasn’t really possible
before we moved in here,” McCall said.
McCall,
Schwartz and other ARC collaborators are
working on a project, funded by a
sub-grant from the National Institutes
of Health (NIH), to develop a drug that
treats pancreatic cancer, an aggressive
cancer with few current treatment
options. McCall anticipates conducting
clinical trials within the next two
years.
The size
and number of new laboratory spaces is
also intended to recruit new
researchers—especially those with
funding from the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) and active research
teams—to the university. OU-HCOM recently
hired a new diabetes researcher who
accepted the position largely because of
the new laboratory space, Brose said.
The
facility opened in January 2010. Project
architects Burgess & Niple believe it is
one of the first facilities in the
United States to combine engineering
education with integrated research
related to medicine and biomedical
engineering.
The $34.5
million project is one of only four
buildings financed significantly through
private donations. The Osteopathic
Heritage Foundations gave $10 million
toward its construction, and Ohio
University Board of Trustees member and
Russ College alumnus Charles Stuckey and
his wife, Marilyn, donated $5 million.
In total,
more than $22 million was raised for the
ARC through the generosity of more than
120 alumni, foundations, corporations
and other friends of OU-COM and the Russ
College.
OU-COM
donors named 28 spaces, including
medical research labs, the café, a
fireplace alcove, conference rooms, and
other alcoves designed to encourage
informal meetings among collaborators.
Between OU-HCOM and the Russ College,
donors named 35 total spaces.
In
addition to the laboratory and classroom
space, the building features 13
classrooms equipped with the latest
instructional technology and moveable
furniture to encourage group work, and
more than a dozen project team rooms
where students, faculty and staff can
gather to brainstorm and advance
projects. |
