MUSC’s grant bonanza could spark biotech boom

Dr. Daniel Knapp, professor of cell and molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the Medical University of South Carolina, calls this an exciting time for MUSC and for all of South Carolina.

Knapp’s enthusiasm is well warranted. He is principal investigator of a heart research project that won a seven-year, $15.2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. That award was among five totaling $42.9 million the medical university recently won in a two-week period—exceeding by $1.5 million all the grant money MUSC received in fiscal 1993.

MUSC is on a grant-winning roll. The $63 million the medical university won during the first quarter of this fiscal year is 45% more than last year’s first quarter. MUSC finished fiscal 2001-02 with $133 million in grants.

This recent grant jackpot boosts MUSC into the upper echelon of medical research institutions, making the university a major player among the likes of Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Yale and the nation’s other top research universities.

What that means, says Knapp, is that MUSC’s biotech projects might attract big money from the federal government. And that could lead to Charleston becoming a leading center for the nation’s biotech industry.

Knapp’s research—cardiovascular proteomics—investigates proteins in human heart cells. Using a diagnostic machine called a mass spectrometer, Knapp and his associates can separate a mixture of proteins extracted from a cell and analyze how protein molecules behave in diseased heart tissue. The scientists can also study how a heart develops in an embryo.

Laying the cellular groundwork for heart formation and disease study will be the mission of MUSC’s forthcoming Cardiovascular Proteomics Center, a direct result of the $15.2 million NIH grant. MUSC is one of 10 U.S. research institutions, including Yale, Stanford and Johns Hopkins, to have proteomics centers spawned earlier this month from $157 million of NIH funding.

“South Carolina definitely has a foot in the door if the federal government wants to make a big proteomics investment somewhere,” claims Knapp. Proteomics, which Knapp calls “the new frontier of biomedical science,” is an extension of the nearly completed Human Genome Project—the coordinated effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and the NIH to identify the roughly 30,000 genes in human DNA and determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that form DNA. Because genes carry the blueprints for protein production and because proteins drive cells, Knapp says proteomics will help researchers predict which of us will get certain diseases. The science also will lead to disease treatments and prevention.

And that’s not all. “Proteomics also has the potential to help us treat bioterrorism-related illnesses, such as anthrax poisoning,” Knapp points out.

Knapp says his research relates to MUSC’s work in tissue engineering, a biotechnology in which a person’s own cells can be used to grow a replacement organ for that person. Proteomics plus tissue engineering form a one-two punch in biotechnology’s competitive funding arena, and Knapp believes this makes MUSC a strong contender not only for hefty grants but also for attracting biotech business.

Dr. John Raymond, MUSC’s interim provost, agrees. “We hope the cardiovascular proteomics grant and the others will draw more venture capital to the Charleston area and create spin-off businesses. For every research dollar we bring in, there is a $1.60 impact on the local economy.”

The other grants in MUSC’s recent grant bonanza include two five-year, NIH-funded, Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grants—a $10.7 million award establishing a Center in Lipidomics and Pathbiology to discover the role fatty molecules play in cell growth, cell death and cell aging, and an $8.7 million grant to develop a Center in Oral Health Research, the largest single award the College of Dental Medicine has ever received.

In addition, the medical university won a five-year, $4.4 million grant to establish a Women’s Research Center to study issues concerning women’s health—a grant funded by the Office of Research on Women’s Health and the NIH—and a $3.7 million grant to reduce health disparities among minorities. The latter, funded by the NIH’s National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, involves MUSC partnering with South Carolina State University.

“The receipt of these grants represents a milestone for the medical university,” says Dr. Kenneth J. Roozen, director of MUSC’s Foundation for Research Development. “Investigators working under such awards tend to feed off each other, resulting in an intellectual synergy that explodes into a wealth of new information.”

And, says proteomics expert Knapp, a wealth of new business.