The University of Kansas Medical Center has begun a journey to help make the Kansas City region a world-class center for biosciences. The goal is to enhance and link basic and clinical research and to provide the leadership to translate those objectives into better health care and quality of life for the Greater Kansas City region, the state of Kansas and the country.

The 10-year, $800 million initiative has been spearheaded by KUMC’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean of the School of Medicine Barbara Atkinson, MD. Her goals for KU Medical Center include becoming a top-25 medical center in basic life sciences, a top-50 center in research and development, and quadrupling the external research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and private organizations to approximately $340 million annually within the next 10 years.

The new plan, The Time is Now, was spurred in part by a 2005 report from the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation called Time to Get it Right. Among the report’s conclusions was that Kansas City needed to invest significant new resources in the community’s higher education research leader - the University of Kansas Medical Center.

“I truly believe that people in the metropolitan area and the state of Kansas want us to elevate the level of research and care throughout the region,” Atkinson says. “When this 10-year plan becomes a reality, the benefits to all of us will be astounding.”

KUMC’s 10-year life sciences strategy is based on regional collaboration among the area’s many life sciences institutions, including the University of Kansas-Lawrence, The University of Kansas Hospital, KU School of Medicine in Wichita, The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Midwest Research Institute, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, the Veterans Administration Hospitals, Saint Luke’s Hospital, Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics and Truman Medical Center. Partners also include the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, the Kansas Bioscience Authority, the region’s clinical research organizations, and the philanthropic community.

Atkinson knows that collaboration with the region’s energetic life sciences community is essential if the goals of KUMC attaining world-class status and the region becoming a top-25 life sciences area are to be achieved.

“I don’t know that we would have attempted to launch such an ambitious plan had there not been such a wealth of bioscience talent in this region already,” Atkinson says. “Other regions of the country that have developed into life sciences hubs were able to do so because of their strong partnerships among medical centers, hospitals, public and private universities and private research institutions.”

The 10-year plan lays out a number of key components that are essential if the region is to be transformed into the bioscience hub that Atkinson envisions. They include:

• Cultivating new research talent and providing the support and facilities to assist in this growth. An increased emphasis on attracting talented students and post-docs will be critical. KUMC wants to hire 244 researchers and add nearly 900,000 square feet of research space in Kansas City and Lawrence over the next 10 years.

• Putting a renewed focus on advancing translational research capabilities across many disciplines. Streamlining the process of moving discoveries from the lab to the bedside will be critical.

• Establishing KU and KUMC as premier institutions in pharmaceutical research, education and commercialization of new drugs.

Atkinson knows that the transformation of KUMC will require significant growth and a sizable financial investment. The 10-year costs for faculty and facilities are estimated at $798.6 million. “While $800 million to recruit new researchers and construct stateof- the-art facilities may seem enormous, we believe this plan can reap economic benefits in the billions for this region in the future,” Atkinson says. “That’s in addition to the lives saved and improved health gains we will see.”

To help fund the plan, KUMC has set a goal of increasing extramural grant funding from NIH and other sources from approximately $85 million per year to $170 million per year by year five and $340 million per year by year 10.

Atkinson says the foundation for KUMC’s 10-year life sciences vision has been in the works for many years, and there already has been progress in the implementation of the plan. She says it is imperative to move forward on making KUMC and the Kansas City region a bioscience powerhouse. +

To download a copy of The Time is Now go to www.kumc.edu.