Med school seeks partnership

Monday, Oct. 11, 2004 | 9:13 a.m.

The University of Nevada School of Medicine is looking to expand its research laboratory space in Reno through a partnership with the Nevada Cancer Institute.

The School of Medicine is asking the Board of Regents next week to approve a private-public partnership that officials say would help both institutions attract more researchers to Nevada, bring in more grant dollars and promote more collaborative efforts to improve cancer treatments statewide.

The partnership would also help the space-cramped School of Medicine build a new biomedical building without asking the state for capital improvement dollars, Dean Dr. John McDonald said, and allow the school and its patients access to cutting edge health care it wouldn't be able to provide on its own.

In the meantime, the Nevada Cancer Institute would be able to fullfill its mission of meeting the needs of the entire state, the institute's president, Heather Murren, said. The institute's ongoing partnerships with the School of Medicine, UNR and UNLV are essential to recruiting top quality researchers and to transferring the research to patient care, Murren said.

The institution is already renting space and working with students and faculty at UNLV's Shadow Lane Campus and at UNR's School of Medicine, Murren said.

Such collaborations are exactly what Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers says he has been pushing since he assumed the position in May, but the proposal does have one major hurdle: The School of Medicine wants to partially finance the new lab space with research dollars Nevada lawmakers currently require be returned to the state general fund.

Most of the grants that go through the state's universities include money for the indirect costs associated with the research -- such as facilities and maintenance. The state currently requires the universities to give back 25 cents for every $1 the university brings in.

The Board of Regents already approved an enhanced budget request asking the state to reconsider allowing the state's institutions to keep the money, system officials said, which amounts to about $10.13 million over the 2005-2007 biennium for UNLV, UNR and the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Although that money currently goes to the general fund to offset other state costs, system officials argue that if the institutions were allowed to keep the money they could use it to improve their research programs and bring in even more money to the universities.

Rogers said he and others met with Gov. Kenny Guinn Wednesday morning to ask for his support of the partnership and the enhancement request, and they plan to lobby lawmakers for their support.

In the medical school's request to regents this week, the retained research money would specifically be used to help finance the proposed $35 million, 70,000-square-foot laboratory/research office complex. The retained research dollars would pay for part of the estimated $2.3 million annual debt on the building, officials said, and the private nonprofit Nevada Cancer Institute would pay the rest by leasing about 20 percent of the building.

Every inch of lab space is currently in use at UNR, McDonald said, as the state hasn't built a biomedical building on the Reno campus in 22 years. All of the other grant dollars coming into the university are already needed to pay for the ongoing research needs, so without the 25 percent going to the state there is no revenue stream large enough to finance a building, McDonald said.

The Nevada Cancer Institute also has all of its finances tied up in the construction of its $52 million, 140,000-square-foot building in Summerlin, Murren said, and cannot afford to pay for the proposed biomedical center on its own.

But once the space is built, both McDonald and Murren said, it would pave the way to bringing in top notch researchers who often bring their grant money with them.

Grants are already fully funding the work Nevada Cancer Institute Deputy Director Dr. David Ward is doing at UNLV's Shadow Lane Campus to diagnose ovarian cancer earlier, as well as the work that the institute's director of basic research, Dr. William Murphy, is doing at the UNR School of Medicine to improve the immune system's ability to fight cancer, Murren said.

"Researchers of the caliber of Dr. Murphy and Dr. Ward pay for themselves and then some," Murren said.

Murphy said his $1.4 million federal grant pays for the lease at UNR and funds 13 staff members, many of them faculty and students from the university.

The plan is for most of the institute's faculty to have joint appointments with both the institute and one of the state's universities to encourage collaboration, Murphy said.

"We can no longer be islands," Murphy said. "We have to work together. I think when times are tight you get your best ideas."

Officials at UNR and UNLV also hope that by bringing in more researchers, they will also attract more biomedical, biotechnology developers into the state, further fueling economic growth.

Ward, a National Academy of Sciences member and the developer on several cancer drugs, already helped UNLV attract a biotechnology company from Utah, Penny Amy, associate provost for campus development, said.