Program Aimed at Creating a New Generation of Biomedical Researchers Is One of Only Ten Selected for Funding by Prestigious Institute

With an eye toward preparing a new generation of biomedical researchers, UC Irvine is creating the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. program that integrates training across five of its schools: biological sciences, engineering, information and computer sciences, medicine, and physical sciences.

The program will be launched with support from a three-year, $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The award was one of ten identical grants issued nationwide by HHMI to initiate fundamental changes in the way scientists are trained. All grants are to be used toward developing innovative graduate education programs designed to produce a cadre of scientists able to work across disciplinary lines, and with the knowledge and skills to conduct research at the interface between the biomedical, physical and computational sciences.

UCI will develop a multi-departmental doctoral program in mathematical, computational and systems biology (MCSB), which will address recent fundamental changes in the kind of research questions being asked by biologists and biomedical scientists.

"There is a revolution underway in biology," said Arthur Lander, the program's director and chair of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology. "UCI can now take a leadership role in providing future biomedical researchers the training needed to take part in this revolution."

According to Lander, biologists have traditionally focused on identifying and defining the roles of the individual components of life, such as cells, proteins and genes. The new field of systems biology, however, takes a more holistic approach, viewing life as composed of complex, engineered systems refined by evolution to carry out specific, difficult tasks. "Systems biologists want to know not just how living things are built, but why they are built that way. 'What design principles control embryonic development so that it is extremely accurate, exploit rapid cell growth to repair and regenerate tissues but restrain it from becoming cancer, or regulate metabolism so that energy is consumed when it is needed and stored when it is not?' These are basically engineering questions within the context of biology. And, as with many engineering questions, one needs mathematics to frame them, and computer power to investigate them."

The MCSB program will be launched in January and feature didactic coursework that integrates biology, mathematics, engineering and computer sciences, coordinated with specialized workshops, training in collaboration skills, diverse lab rotations and individualized advising.

The grant will fund a three-year program development phase during which UCI will seek approval within the UC system for a new Ph.D. degree in mathematical, computational and systems biology. The HHMI grant is designed to transition, at the end of this phase, into a more traditional five-year training grant, to be funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health. That grant would provide partial support for an ongoing graduate program that, in Lander's estimation, will admit 15 or more students each year, drawn from diverse backgrounds in the biological, physical and engineering sciences.

Along with Lander from the School of Biological Sciences, the program will be co-directed by: Steven George, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering; Qing Nie, School of Physical Sciences and director of the Center for Mathematical and Computational Biology; G. Wesley Hatfield, School of Medicine and associate director of the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics; and Eric Mjolsness, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences.

About The Howard Hughes Medical Institute: The institute is dedicated to discovering and disseminating new knowledge in the basic life sciences. HHMI grounds its research programs on the conviction that scientists of exceptional talent and imagination will make fundamental contributions of lasting scientific value and benefit to mankind when given the resources, time and freedom to pursue challenging questions. The institute prizes intellectual daring and seeks to preserve the autonomy of its scientists as they pursue their research. A nonprofit medical research organization, HHMI was established in 1953 by the aviator-industrialist. The institute, headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md., is one of the largest philanthropies in the world with an endowment of $14.8 billion at the close of its 2005 fiscal year. HHMI spent $483 million in support of biomedical research and $80 million for support of a variety of science education and other grants programs in fiscal 2005.

About the University of California, Irvine: Celebrating 40 years of innovation, the University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.