MUSC’s endowed chairs advance bioscience cluster

Editor’s note: This is the first article in an ongoing series on the endowed chairs that have been created by the state’s research universities in hopes of fostering the biosciences throughout the Palmetto State.

They are, in a sense, the vanguard of regional economic developers’ efforts to establish a lasting biosciences cluster in the Lowcountry.

Four years ago, the General Assembly created the S.C. Research Centers of Economic Excellence program. As a result, seven scientists to date have been lured to the Medical University of South Carolina with the promise of administrative support and resources to continue the reputation-making work they began at other prestigious universities.

But the promise that surrounds Kenneth Tew, John LeMasters, Charles Smith, John Schaefer, Miguel Pappolla, Gary Aston-Jones and Richard Swaja extends far beyond Charleston and the MUSC campus.

They bring with them the expertise, associates and nationwide contacts that soon may usher in an economic biosciences boom in the Lowcountry.

“The first thing we need to do is to reach out to researchers in mid-career and inspire them to see South Carolina as a place that will bolster their efforts to reach their career goals,” said Swaja, who arrived in Charleston from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in early October. He will hold positions at MUSC and Clemson University while also serving as point man in the effort to bring academics and business together.

“Then we need to bring people together so that those steeped in science will begin to learn the intricacies of business, and the business-minded will learn of new opportunities born of the science in their midst,” he said.

This series will examine those efforts. That examination begins with an extended conversation with Kenneth D. Tew, holder of the John C. West Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at MUSC, and the first of the endowed chairs to arrive here, moving to Charleston nearly two years ago.

Answering confounding questions

Shortly after arriving at his office on a recent Tuesday morning, Tew was explaining why he’s dedicated his life to exploring the world of pharmacology, specifically as it relates to cancer.

“It’s a question of scientific curiosity,” said Tew, who in addition to his endowed chair also heads MUSC’s Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

“Realize that there are more scientists at work today in the world than ever lived before this time in human history, and what that means is that there are fewer and fewer questions in need of answers. Cancer is one of the exceptions. Much about it remains unknown and, therefore, it’s a perplexing issue.”

Tew recalled how a childhood love of science and nature inspired his career and his college years solidified its focus.

He received his undergraduate degree in microbial genetics, followed by a Ph.D. in biochemical pharmacology from the University of London’s Institute of Cancer Research. He later earned a second advanced degree, a Doctor of Science, from the same university.

Then, in the late 1970s, Tew came to America to complete his post-doctoral training in molecular pharmacology at Georgetown University. He was offered a position with the university and worked there for nearly three years before accepting a research position with the Fox Chase Center in Philadelphia. In time, he held the center’s endowed chair in cancer research and also chaired its Department of Pharmacology.

Tew’s research over the years has focused on those two major themes, which converge in the area of chemotherapeutic agents. These interests have continued with consistent peer-reviewed grant support since 1980, culminating in the award of a National Cancer Institute outstanding investigator grant covering the period 1993 to 2000.

“It varies by discipline and outlook, but there are some broad criteria that do apply to scientists in general,” he said.

The first, he said, is having an administration in Washington that understands that funding science is important. “That’s something that waxes and wanes with shifts in politics,” he said.

Next is a framework of industry that includes the big pharmaceutical companies, or “Big Pharma” as researchers call them, startup biotech companies and all aspects in between, he said.

“Another thing you need is for the infrastructure to be in place, meaning not just buildings and lab space, but also highly educated staff to interact with,” Tew said. “Then, of course, you need an administrative structure within a university that supports your area of research.”

Building a department

Tew admits that his decision to come to Charleston wasn’t based solely on MUSC’s or the state’s commitment to cancer research.

“After 17 years, I was beginning to feel like I’d been in my position too long and that perhaps the administrators in Philadelphia had been in their positions too long as well,” he said.

In MUSC, he saw an opportunity to be re-energized. Not only did it appear that university president Dr. Ray Greenberg and other administrators would support his work, but also that the university itself was beginning to change, with nearly 80% of the professors in his department nearing retirement.

“So it was an opportunity to build my own staff in a setting where the focus was much more orientated toward cancer research,” Tew said.

But there was still one concern to be reconciled before he accepted the position: leaving a position as an endowed chair for one that wasn’t. But then the S.C. Research Centers of Economic Excellence was established by the General Assembly in 2002.

The Research Centers of Economic Excellence Act authorized the state’s three public research institutions—MUSC, the University of South Carolina and Clemson University—to use S.C. Education Lottery funds, matched dollar for dollar with non-state funds, to strengthen research and create endowed professorships in areas that will enhance the state’s economy.

Tew describes his research simply, saying his overarching goal is to better understand how cancer responds to different drugs. “It’s not dissimilar to looking at how bacteria respond to different antibiotics,” he said.

The challenge is that while the general public thinks of cancer as one disease, it is actually a catch-all phrase for about 160 different diseases.

“So you’re not looking for a single ‘lung cancer’ drug, you’re looking for a treatment for one of four diseases that we broadly classify as lung cancer, but are actually quite distinct,” Tew said.

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at [email protected].