Long lagging behind peer institutions in terms of funding and resources, the Division of Biology and Medicine stands to become one of the largest beneficiaries of President Ruth Simmons' Initiatives for Academic Enrichment.
Brown's Division of Biology and Medicine comprises the Program in Biology, the Medical School and the Program in Public Health. Each year, about 2,600 to 3,000 undergraduates - including 300 concentrators - are enrolled in one of the courses of the five biology departments. The biology departments also enroll about 130 graduate students each year.
As part of the Plan for Academic Enrichment and the bio-med division's own expansion, the Division of Biology and Medicine will soon have between 30 and 40 new faculty members, according to Associate Dean for Research Peter Shank. Some of these positions have already been filled, including five of six in brain sciences and two of six in genomics and proteomics, Shank said. The ecology and evolutionary biology department will also be receiving two new faculty members, and molecular pharmacology, physiology and biotechnology will also receive one new faculty member, according to Interim Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Dr. Richard Besdine.
The addition of faculty will benefit all students taking classes in the bio-med division, Shank said, because all faculty members teach both graduate and undergraduate classes. In addition, more faculty members will translate into more research opportunities for undergraduates. "The effect (of adding faculty) is huge because undergraduates in the bio-med department do a research project with a faculty member and these are the faculty with whom they'll be doing research," Besdine said.
In keeping with the increased focus on research expansion, the University announced Wednesday that Dr. Eli Adashi, formerly of the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, will be taking over for Besdine as dean for medicine and biological sciences. Adashi, who boasts a prolific research career, said he wants to make increasing research opportunities for undergraduates, graduates and medical students a top priority.
Along with the new faculty will come much-needed expansion of research facilities, Besdine said. In addition to occupying space in the Life Sciences Building, the bio-med division will expand into a five-story building at 70 Ship St., in the Jewelry District. The building, which formerly housed a costume jewelry store, will now be home to Brown's state-of-the-art 105,000-square-foot Laboratories for Molecular Medicine, Besdine said.
The Ship Street building is Brown's first academic building to be located off College Hill, Besdine said. It will house the new Center for Genomics and Proteomics.
Proteomics is a field that developed as a result of genomics - a branch of genetics that studies organisms in terms of their genomes, or full DNA sequences. "Genomics ... is the study of how groups of genes act together and how genes regulate themselves and one another," Besdine said. Proteomics deals with analyzing the structure, function and interactions of the proteins produced by a particular cell, tissue or organism. The two fields are linked because genes affect biological change through the synthesis and control of proteins, he said. Most of modern biology focuses on genomics and proteomics, Besdine said.
"Brown had not kept pace in the past in these areas, so investment in them has been absolutely essential, and I totally agree with that decision," he said.
Scientists working at the Ship Street building will do research directed at gaining a better understanding of the basis of human biology and disease, Besdine said. In general, scientists on campus are focused on basic biological medicines, not disease, but "there is a point of intersection, and that's what we're focusing on at Ship Street," he said.
In addition to a combined 270,000 square feet of space in the Ship Street and Life Sciences buildings, the University has committed to building a new 150,000-square-foot building for the Program in Public Health, Shank said. The location for this building has not yet been determined.
The University has also committed to adding 17 new tenure-track faculty in the Department of Community Health, Shank said. Two more results of the departmental expansion include the Initiative in Global and Environmental Change, an interdisciplinary program involving the bio-medical, evolutionary ecology and environmental studies programs, and a program for computational molecular biology.
The computational molecular biology initiative will be based at the Ship Street building and will involve "basically figuring out what to do with the 3 billion base-pair sequences of the human genome and how you can use that to figure out information about disease, development and different issues," Shank said.
Shank said that with the planned changes, the Division of Biology and Medicine will be competitive with peer institutions such as Harvard and Stanford University for the world's best faculty.
"I've been here 26 years, and I think this is the most exciting time at Brown," he said.
