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MUSC research funding on track to break record

Dec. 1, 2003
Charleston Post and Courier
By Jonathan Maze
This summer, after the Medical University of South Carolina attracted a state record $150 million in research funding, Dr. John Raymond, the university's provost, said the institution would be unlikely to top it by much this year.

Wrong.

The university is on pace to smash that figure this year. Through November, MUSC has generated more than $97 million in research grants, a third higher than at the same point last year. With more than half the year remaining, MUSC is on track to do $180 million in research.

"If you would have asked me this summer if we had a realistic chance of reaching $180 million, I would have said no," Raymond said. "It's amazing."

To put it into perspective and show how much research has grown at MUSC, the $97 million is more than it did in all of 1998. Of course, it remains a far cry from more established research centers -- Johns Hopkins in Baltimore received $510 million in government research funds alone.

Still, MUSC's increasing focus on research has helped it offset a $30 million reduction in state funding. Without those added grant dollars, cuts and staff reductions on MUSC's academic side over that time might have been much worse.

One of the reasons for the growth this year is the university has a critical mass of investigators, Raymond said. He also said closer research ties with the University of South Carolina and Clemson University are making MUSC more competitive.

MUSC's research performance during the last fiscal year, which ended in July, was a big increase over the previous year, when the university attracted nearly $135 million in research, also an institution record.

At the time, Raymond issued a warning that growth in coming years could slow. His reasons were simple: The university was using all its available research space; state funding cuts were making it more difficult to support research efforts; and federal spending on health research was not growing.

The increase means the university faculty has been able to do more despite the space constraints.

Two buildings, the expanded Hollings Cancer Center and the Children's Research Institute, are expected to be finished sometime next year, which would provide relief.

It also means the university is taking research dollars away from other institutions. Raymond said other universities in the Southeast have seen research growth slowed.

Raymond still believes the factors he felt would slow research down this year will come into play sooner or later. "It's got to stop sometime," he said.

The space constraints are making it difficult to recruit some faculty. Raymond said there are faculty who'd love to move to Charleston but won't because there isn't enough lab space.

Raymond said the budget cuts have hurt the university's ability to put together packages to help the professors get started. "There's clearly a cost in getting somebody established in the research area," he said.

For the moment, though, the university has overcome its obstacles in the research arena.

FUND-RAISING

MUSC is taking another route in its funding of a new hospital: philanthropy.

The university recently created a new position, director of development for the medical center, and named David Soutter to take the job. Soutter is a former banker who recently spent time as interim director of the Gibbes Museum of Art.

Much of the fund raising will be in naming opportunities, university officials said. Yet they hope they won't have to use the money for this particular hospital, said Marion Woodbury, special assistant to MUSC President Ray Greenberg.

The $293 million hospital is being funded through patient revenues generated by the 156-bed facility. The fund-raising effort, Woodbury said, will be more important when it comes to paying for subsequent phases, which would replace the existing hospital.

Paying for those phases would be much more difficult than this one because as replacements there will be less revenue to use to pay for the debt. And the price tag isn't cheap: Over the next decade or two, they could bring the cost of the hospital to $1 billion.
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