The stereotype of a lone scientist finding cures in his laboratory in the middle of the night has become a thing of the past. Tackling the complexities of medical research has very much become a shared experience.

Today, cooperation is king in the life sciences. Collaborative projects stretch across KU’s campuses in Kansas City, Lawrence and Wichita and involve teams that cross disciplines and often include researchers from other universities and institutions.

“Cancer cells don’t appear to be terribly impressed about whether or not you have an MD or a PhD, nor do they particularly respond if the therapies are generated by someone in the medicinal chemistry program in Lawrence or someone in an oncology clinical program in Kansas City,” says KU Provost Richard Lariviere, PhD. “All the assets of the medical and research faculty have to be focused on scientific problems. They can’t be contrained by the boundaries of administrative divisions.”

Steven Warren, PhD, interim Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies at KU, puts it this way: “The truth is that great science comes more and more from great collaborations.”

Whether performed by cross-campus teams or multidisciplinary groups located on one campus, life science research is an important focus of the Kansas City, Wichita and Lawrence campuses. In the 2006 fiscal year, sponsored project expenditures for such research totaled $130.7 million at KU. Nearly $68 million of that research was carried out at the Medical Center in Kansas City, $1.4 million at Wichita and $61 million in Lawrence. The projects in Kansas City and Lawrence vary widely, while the Wichita campus primarily focuses on clinical trials with patients.

One of the major programs that has benefited greatly from the multicampus approach is the KU Cancer Center.

“I know that some folks think the Cancer Center is just at the Medical Center in Kansas City,” says Scott Weir, director of the Cancer Center’s Office of Therapeutics, Discovery and Development.

Multi-campus teamwork allows KU to tap into the region’s expertise and facilities and to more efficiently use university resources, Weir says. For example, on drug discovery and implementation projects, KU usually partners with other academic institutions and commercial labs, which reduces costs, especially for expensive tests that are necessary before making a decision on whether to move forward with a drug. Competition may be what stimulates the worlds of sports and business, but it can be deadly in the life sciences

Lariviere add, “If the folks at The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas discover something that’s useful to our scientists, then we better put it to work here.”

Another bi-campus effort that has benefited greatly from collaboration is the Center for Child Health and Development, which diagnoses and develops treatment recommendations for children with developmental disabilities. Thirty-six percent of the scientists at the Center work with researchers at other universities and institutions. Clinical trials performed by KU professors in Wichita are often in collaboration with Wesley Medical Center and Via Christi Hospital.

Peter Smith, co-director of the Center, has just started a four-year project examining nerve cell degeneration. Whether naturally occurring or pathological, degeneration is one of the processes that leads to developmental disabilities.

“We’re looking at the basic science of the process,” Smith says. “If we can understand this in a simple model, we can understand it in bigger problems that include mental retardation, autism and cerebral palsy.”

Smith, who works in Kansas City, says he probably would not have received funding from the National Institutes for Health for the project if he had not been collaborating with Richard Dobrowsky, PhD, in Lawrence. An associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology, Dobrowsky brings expertise in lipids to the project. Smith has expertise in proteins. Together, they are better prepared to unravel some of the mysteries of nerve cell degeneration. According to Smith, bridging the 42 miles between his and Dobrowsky’s laboratories is not difficult with the help of the telephone, e-mail, tele-video conferencing and the occasional drive down I-70.

“What is difficult,” he says, “is for one person to acquire the full skill set needed to tackle a scientific problem.”

Another KU cross-campus collaboration that has already benefited millions of infants world-wide involves Susan Carlson, PhD, the Midwest Dairy Association Professor of Nutrition in KUMC, and John Colombo, PhD, Professor of Cognitive Psychology in Lawrence. Carlson is an expert on DHA, a fatty acid that has been shown to affect early brain development. Colombo is an expert on the measurement of the intelligence of infants. In 2002, their efforts convinced two major producers of infant formula to add DHA and another fatty acid to their formula.

“Neither could do their work without the other,” Warren says. “That’s what collaboration is all about.” +