$105 million will fund research

IU received a $105 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. Dec. 14 to fund the School of Medicine's Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN). The grant is the single largest awarded in the endowment's history.\nLilly Endowment Communications Director Gretchen Wolfram said the grant complements both IU's traditional strengths and the endowment's mission to further technological advancement in education.\n"We've had a very long relationship with IU going back to the early 1940s," Wolfram said. "This grant definitely advances IU's strengths in biotechnology, wonderful computing capacities and excellent people involved."\nWolfram said while the grant had no formal application process, the endowment asked schools to examine their strengths and submit proposals. \n"The endowment has asked colleges and universities to take a look at their mission and historical strengths," she said, "and see how that could be applied in a proposal that would address that history and that mission and would allow the institution to make a distinctive step ahead, and at the same time, advance the state of Indiana."\nGenomics is the study of the structure and function of large numbers of genes simultaneously. Genes are sequences of DNA that represent a unit of heredity. \nSchool of Medicine Dean Dr. Craig Brater said the endowment's grant will allow the school to combine its existing genomics programs with new capabilities and create "new bridges that did not exist before."\n"For example, we have not had a bioinformatics program; by creating one we take advantage of our patient data base in helping sort out the role of newly identified genes and the role of genes in disease," Brater said. "Thus, bioinformatics allows us to link our patient care activities to our basic science in genomics. Without this new 'linker' the INGEN program would not exist." \nThe School of Medicine already has $130 million in research funding, which includes money for the federally-sponsored gene vector production and research facility, for one of three molecular hematology research centers in the country and for a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Research Center. Lilly Endowment grant money will be used to advance opportunities for doctoral and master's degree scientists and computer specialists at IU-Purdue at Indianapolis and IU. \nThe grant will also allow the school of medicine to expand its studies in bioethics, a field Brater said is becoming increasingly important because of the nature of genomics research.\n"There are numerous ethical issues that arise in medicine butparticularly as a result of the Human Genome Project," Brater said. "For example, how does one properly inform a patient that their blood cells are going to be stored and may in the future be used to identify a certain disease? What if it turns out that you discover that they have the disease?..." \n"The point is that there are numerous questions and it is certain that more will appear. As such, we believe that a top flight program in genomics must be accompanied by an equally strong program in bioethics."\nIU President Myles Brand said he is excited about the new research possibilities this will provide.\n"IU is very happy to partner with the Lilly Endowment to create the Indiana Genomics Initiative," Brand said in a press release. "Through its approval of this funding, the Endowment clearly states its belief that IU is up to this challenge. Of course, I heartily agree."\nThe School of Medicine is currently recruiting and hiring several key positions for the INGEN program. Brater said he believes the grant will be helpful in recruiting the best personnel possible.\n"The grant will help enormously in recruitment and retention, because it means we will be a world class program," he said. "People want to be part of something like that. We have several active searches ongoing and are close on at least one. The people we are identifying and who are genuinely interested could take positions anywhere in the world, but they see that there is something special going on here"