IU joins science initiative

Several Indiana institutions joined intellectual and financial forces to launch Indiana into national prominence in the life sciences industry. \nThe Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative was formed by the combined efforts from IU, Purdue, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, the City of Indianapolis and the Indiana Health Industry Forum.\nCombined, the projects from this initiative will cost $1.5 billion for the advancement of academic and economic development.\nOf that $1.5 billion, IU will rack up a $500 million tab over the next three to five years.\nPart of IU's contribution -- $150 million -- will go toward building projects that include a Biomedical Research and Training Center, Stark Neurosciences Research Institute and a $75 million, 250,000 square-foot building dedicated to cancer research. These buildings will be part of the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis. \nOther IU funds will flow from the Lilly Endowment, which allocates $105 million to support the Indiana Genomics Initiative founded in Dec. 2000. Fifty-$100 million in venture capital will be raised for life sciences in the region by several different partners, including IU. \nIU President Myles Brand stressed that this money does not come from tuition or other University funds.\n"None of this money is being taken away from the University," Brand said. "Investors invest through us. We compete for grants and through these grants comes the money used for research and project funding."\nBut as David Goodrich, president and CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership put it, money is not only thing IU brings to the initiative.\n"Dollars are certainly very important, but the resources IU brings are amazing," Goodrich said. "The real asset of IU are the people and the bright minds, and if we can harness those bright minds then the possibilities would be endless."\nFor students the Initiative means a broader range of opportunities.\n"In Indiana, the average wages in the life sciences industry are two and a half times the average worker's wage," he said. "If we are successful, this will drive the economy for years." \nWhile other states may draw IU graduates away from Indiana because of mountains and oceans, Goodrich said if the initiative is successful, the graduates will stay for the better jobs.\n"We need to find a way to keep the graduates," Goodrich said. "With the jobs that will be created, we're going to keep the great minds here in Indiana."\nFor Dr. Craig Brater, dean of IU School of Medicine, the goals of the initiative are in total alignment with the goals of the medical school.\n"The biggest challenge for physicians, scientists and basically all people in the life sciences industry is coping with the enormous explosion of information and deciding how that should be incorporated into their daily activities. If they are immersed in an environment through their entire education and they are seeing these questions asked, analyzed and put into practice every day, then they will be better equipped to handle this information explosion in the real world," Brater said. "We hope the initiative is going to create a learning environment where we're not just teaching the medicine of today, we're defining the medicine of tomorrow." \nThe initiative comes as the inaugural effort in Indiana from two research universities, city government and private businesses. Without this collaboration, the Initiative would not have been possible, Brand said.\n"We couldn't have succeed if we tried to do this alone," Brand said. "Something this substantial requires a partnership." \nVirginia and California have already been very successful with models like this, and the cooperation is a breakthrough for the state of Indiana, Brand said.\nGoodrich agrees.\n"They're always been a good spirit of cooperation and getting things done," Goodrich said. "In Indiana, team efforts work. The coming together of these resources to generate a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts is what the Initiative is all about"