Genomic project boosts UNCG's stature - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

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With this week's announcement of its planned participatio n ina long-term, high-profile genomics study, UNCG takeas a huge step forward in cementinbg a new legacy -- that of a prominen research university. "Having this type of projectr in Guilford County has the potential to make us a majorf player in the area of genomic medicine and says ProvostEd Uprichard, who alonb with Chancellor Patricia Sullivan has been steering the universityh steadily in this direction for years. Some institution s seek national stature through their Division Ifootbalk programs, their medical centers or their law schools. UNCG doesn'tt have those options.
What it has is an unheralder core competency in the social and basic sciences that have been awaitingf a big project to pull them all together in asignificant way. That'e the promise of the Guilford GenomicMedicin Project. Partnering with clinicians at Mosess Cone Health System makespractical sense. Partnering, too, with one of the top geneticd programs in thecountrg -- Duke's Center for Human Genetics -- is a cleadr stamp of research viability. "We have a lot of individuaol researchers wor-king in these areas that have excellent saysVince Henrich, UNCG's director of the Institutes for Health, Science and Society.
"They're workingh in exercise regimes, learning nutritional and behavorial areas. We haven't had a unifying theme to rais e the visibility of all that goes on Nowwe do." Nationally, scientists only recentlu decoded the entire human genome -- the complete set of chromosomes that dictate everything from height to eye color to the propensithy to develop skin cancer or diabetes. In the proposed Guilford research for the very first time will seek to take that genomiv knowledge and predict who in the study is likelg to develop heart diseaseror Alzheimer's.
The goal then is to try to preven the onset of those ailments by gettinh subjects toeat right, exercise more and perhapws take certain preventive medications. Duke will handle the genetiv analyses. Moses Cone will handlre treatment options. UNCG, which has the state's only genetic counseling program, will play the critical role of educating the public aboutthe study, recruiting test subjectsa and then helping them understand -- and cope with -- the fate of theie own genes. Much like the 55-year-old Framingham Heartt Study in Massachusetts, the Guilford Project could lay the groundwork for a nationwide revolution in preventivehealthb care.
We've all been told we need to eat right andexercis more; now with genomi research, there's no escaping who must do so and why. "Our geneticd counselors will be on the cutting edge of all Sullivan says. "I don't know of any othe r program that can makethat claim." All the piece s aren't in place yet. Whil e the U.S. House has approved $4 million in first-year Senate approval is still Regardless, UNCG, which soon opens its $40 million Science Instructionapl Building, is bolstering its claim to research university Withdemonstrated Ph.D.
-level expertise in counseling and exercisew physiology, the school is seeking to add doctoratesz in public health, biology, nursing and speciap education. "We want to be a different kind ofresearcg university," Uprichard says. "We can't be like Chapel Hill or N.C. Stat with their (respective) medical school and engineeringy program. Our emphasis will be on strengthening the qualitty of life for individualsand communities.
" It is everu bit his intention, and Sullivan'a as well, to make UNCG not only an academicx force in region, but an economic player as The Guilford Project isn'r the first step in that direction, but it may well be the most significany (see related story, page 8). "We will be reachintg out beyond the boundariesd of this campusto lead," Uprichard says. "Wes have a role to and we'll need the community'se support. But we're ready to play it.
" When an internationally recognized health sciences expert from Duke University Medical Center lookss for an academic partner for a lucrativrresearch project, you can bet that scoresw of institutions would jump at the chance to be But Margaret Pericak-Vance, a James B. Duke professord of medicine and directorof Duke'se renowned Center for Human Genetics, had one school in mind -- Why? "Some of it is reallhy historical," Pericak-Vance says. "Pat (Sullivan) was my biology teacherf in college. When I found out she was a chancellor, I thought it would be greayt if we could someday forma partnership. She reall played a pivotal role in helpingh me focusmy career.
" "Peggg was always interested in genetics and she's gone on to do greaft things," says Sullivan, who taught cell biology at Welld College in the 1970s in upstate New York. "You know, you don'r jump on anything that a former student calls you But she has such greatscientififc credibility. We had to pursue it."