BioSmarts: college programs for Indiana's life-sciences future.

"LIFE SCIENCE IS GOING to be the overarching theme for the century," says Jeffrey Vitter, dean of the college of science, Purdue University, West Lafayette.

"Life science is the No. 1 priority of IU," says Craig Brater, dean of the Indiana University Medical School, Indianapolis, and vice president for life sciences for IU.

The excitement among Indiana's university leaders about the possibilities for the life sciences is palpable. Building on their individual strengths, each institution has a plan to move itself, its students and Indiana forward. And the buzzword they apply to their approach is often "interdisciplinary," tapping the talents of multiple program areas within their institutions to make the whole bigger than the sum of the parts.

Advances in technology from the last century will help advance life sciences in this one, and will be used to link life sciences with physical sciences and engineering, says Vitter. Purdue uses a "systems biology approach," he explains, using sophisticated computer models to see how membranes and cells function. The $15 million Bindley BioScience Center, which opened last year in Purdue's Discovery Park, provides the tools and the infrastructure for the important work.

Discovery Park is Purdue's $300 million hub for interdisciplinary research and is home to 10 primary centers focusing on everything from biosciences, the environment and manufacturing to oncological sciences, cyberinfrastructure and health-care engineering. "Nothing could be more important right now to Purdue," says Vitter.

In September, a new $25 million Biomedical Engineering building was dedicated in the park, which houses the university's program begun in the 1970s by professor Les Geddes, now emeritus, says Vitter. "It's a testament to his ingenuity in advancements in artificial tissues and organs. The program is now a college with its own students and its own building. It will be hiring 20 new faculty." Some of them will be joint faculty with other schools, he adds, building on the interdisciplinary approach of Discovery Park. Students are able to work on real-life projects for Indiana's medical device and biotechnology companies.

"Purdue, through its own mechanisms, primarily tuition increases five years ago, is growing by 300 faculty," says Vitter. "By next summer we will have hired all 300." Now it's time for some improvements in basic infrastructure, he says. The main science building, Lilly Hall of Science, is now 50 years old. "It's aging severely, with problems in air handling and insulation." A new infrastructure is needed to support "the incredible scientists we've brought to Purdue."

Building a research infrastructure. Indiana University released its strategic plan for life sciences in January and at the same time created a new vice president position to spearhead the effort statewide. It was a second hat for the Med School dean, Craig Brater. The price tag for carrying out the 10- to 12-year plan is $1 billion, with a request of the first installment of $80 million from the General Assembly for the next biennium.

"It's going to mainly be used to recruit research talent," says Brater. "We'll expect they'll get or bring research grants." Nearly 500 new scientists are planned, double the current number. "We haven't pulled all the numbers out of a hat," he says. "We don't want to double just because it sounds good. It's based on analysis--projections based on current performance." Over the 10- to 12-year period, IU expects the new investment will generate $2.4 billion in new money to the state from federal and private grants to the new scientists, create about 14,000 new jobs--on top of 2,000 new jobs at IU--and create or attract 100 new life-sciences companies in Indiana.

Lilly Endowment's $105 million grant for the Indiana Genomics Initiative in 2001, INGEN, was the beginning of IU's major life-sciences push. "If you're going to have a life-science economy you have to have a research infrastructure among the top in the country," says Brater. He expects that Indiana would be in the top 15 to 20 research institutions, in terms of National Institutes of Health grants, with fruition of the strategic plan. IU is 47th in the latest NIH ranking.

The third noted research institution in Indiana, University of Notre Dame, opened its new $70 million, 200,000-square-foot Jordan Hall of Science in September. Life-sciences and biomedical-related research areas are significant themes at Notre Dame, says Joseph Marino, dean of the college of science. He points to two prominent and established centers within the university as examples of cutting-edge research and study: the Keck Center for Transgene Research and the Notre Dame Cancer Center. Both centers were moved to the new Raclin-Carmichael Hall last fall, which also houses the IU School of Medicine-South Bend.

The 10-year-old Keck Center focuses on blood diseases and genomic approaches to understanding cancer treatment. "It's really a first-rate research facility that mimics a small biotech company in terms of its organization and scope," says Marino. Prostate and colon cancers are the focus of the cancer center, with three components: palliative care for people with life-threatening illnesses and their families, drug development research and a clinical component.

A smaller program, but one of major importance to developing countries, says Marino, is tackling global health issues. "For years Notre Dame has been very prominent in tropical diseases." A small group of federally funded researchers, housed in a new Biological Safety Lab in the biology building, are studying airborne and infectious diseases, such as malaria and West Nile.

Other Notre Dame researchers are looking into rare blood and neurological diseases that effect fewer than 200,000 people, making the work unattractive to for-profit pharmaceutical companies. "Because Notre Dame is a Catholic university, there's greater awareness of service--education that will impact mankind. We like to use the phrase 'Science for Humanity,'" says Marino.

Ball State University's leadership in nursing and other medical education is well known. Perhaps lesser know, even though it celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, is the work of its Human Performance Laboratory, where graduate students and faculty conduct research on physiological problems relating to exercise and work performance.

"This university actually invented what is now known as kinesiology," says Terry King, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "It's a fairly large research center." Grant projects have been funded by NIH and NASA, for research on muscle fiber function and aging, the effect of over-the-counter pain medication on resistance training in older individuals, muscle function during space flight and prolonged bed rest, and exercise for children with ADHD.

King also points to the capabilities of BSU's Micro-Imaging Research Lab with its new $300,000 3-D confocal microscope, the only one in the region. It was funded by a joint grant request from BSU and the IU School of Medicine, South Bend, from the National Science Foundation and will be used by a variety of university programs such as medical education, nanotechnology, biomechanics and human performance. "The nice thing for undergraduate students is they actually get to get their hands on that equipment," says King.

Real-world education Real-world tips are part of the training at the University of Evansville. Most of the molecular biology students will go on to become physicians or scientists, says associate professor of biology Brian Ernsting. But he makes sure they go away with skills rarely stressed to biology students elsewhere, such as good communications. "I tell students, 'Even if you were to make a Nobel Prize discovery, but didn't communicate it, fund it, complete it, it would be the same as never having done it."

Some schools offer labs with all the materials laid out on a table, he says. Just do the work, record the outcome and move on to the next assignment. "If you show up at Eli Lilly, it's not going to be all laid out for you." He teaches students to find sources and suppliers for their research--and learn to ask for discounts, develop a budget and interact with funding agencies, determine the practicability of projects and collaborate with others. "Not only does it need to be publishable and present real knowledge, but actually be doable in the real world, including the time to do it as part of the budget," says Ernsting.

In response to the growing needs of Indiana's life-sciences companies such as Lilly, Dow, Roche, Baxter and Warsaw's biomedical firms, Ivy Tech developed a biotechnology associate's degree program in 2004. "What was really missing was a program for lab technicians," says Carol D'Amico, executive vice president. Companies were hiring people with bachelor's degrees who didn't stay in the jobs long.

"It's a tough, rigorous program," she says. "We needed to get students ready for that, especially in science and math. We needed a year to get them ready. It's taking three years to get a two-year degree. If we could address the whole preparedness program, we could cut down the time."

The new program is being offered in Bloomington, Indianapolis (where Eli Lilly designed the lab), Lafayette and South Bend. A total of 250 students are now enrolled and can expect an entry-level salary of about $38,000.

Increased interest in life-sciences education. "It's hard to predict what an 18-year-old will want to study," says Lee Waite, chair of the Department of Applied Biology and Biomedical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute. But when the university began fielding questions about whether it offered a biomedical engineering degree it decided to start one in the late '90s. Originally designed for 25 students, it has 50 in this year's freshman class, a total of 200 enrolled.

"Most of the things we do at Rose-Hulman are driven by student interest," says Waite. It would have been a risk to get a biomedical degree when he went to school in the early '80s, he says. "In the past, companies hired mechanical engineers and said, 'We can teach you to do biomedical engineering.' Now you don't need all the expertise of a mechanical engineer. You need more training in physiology and biology."

Although some graduates go on to medical school or master's programs, quite a few land at Indiana's medical-device companies, says Waite. "Think about every kind of device you've ever seen used in a hospital--x-rays, machines to monitor heart rate. Doctors know how to use them, they don't know how to make them."