Dr. Joe Kornegay of MU emphasizes the synergy between agriculture and animal health as critical components of the Life Sciences. Dr. Bill Troug of Children's Mercy Hospital observes. .
MERIT OR POLITICS
The question was raised as to who gets the federal money and why. There was all but consensus that the NIH tends to distribute its money on a rational basis.
"It is merit driven," said Elias Michaelis of KU, but to secure NIH funding, "you have to have strength in a given area." By strength, he means "multiples of expert in that area" as one would see in an established life science center like Boston or the North Carolina's Research Triangle. The "major challenge," according to Michaelis, is to create a critical mass of scientists and clinicians that are involved in the whole enterprise. "Excellence," said Michaelis, "is also in numbers."
Dr. Bill Caskey of Children's Mercy Hospital saw "a political component as well" in the distribution of funding. Although the hallmark of such funding may be "peer-reviewed science," Caskey has also noticed "the large research institutions lobbying and obtaining earmarked funds for infrastructure developments." He cited Birmingham as an example, partly as a result of the lobbying efforts of the two powerful Alabama Senators. Critical mass in any field almost inevitably translates into political power. Undiscussed was whether it also leads to the rewarding of scientific orthodoxy at the expense of innovation.
Hellman sees a broader problem. "To me," Hellman noted, "the biggest obstacle is not the fault of anyone here, it's that the health care system as a whole is seriously underfunded." He cited figures of $50-90 billion each year in administrative waste. "One thing we'd like to see in health care delivery," he noted, "is more efficiency."
COMMERCIALIZATION
If the lack of critical mass scares away research money, it wards off venture capital even more dramatically. Peter Higuchi of Cydex spoke directly to this point. Like others, he argued that the end result of the research should be to develop useful applications. "There has to be a commercial element," he stated. "There has to be capital available to start these companies and to attract the scientists, the managers, the entrepreneurs, the business leaders to these companies to allow for critical mass."
To the present, at least, Kansas City has been afflicted by what KU's Michaelis calls, in nicely understated science-speak, "the phenomenon of not enough funding." Michaelis noted that over the last few years he and his colleagues have been trying to launch new companies only to hear, "Would you like to move to San Diego? We could get you all the money you need."
He was not being pessimistic, he asserted, just realistic. New companies ere may eventually succeed, but what he sees is a "very long cycle" towards serious growth. "Steps have to be taken to plan for some measure of success," Higuchi noted. "This is all a very long term process."
UMKC's Kelley Thomas agreed, "We have to have a plan to grow those technologies here." Thomas, like several others, expressed a particular interest in the multi-disciplinary issue of bio-informatics. Finding the people to service bio-informatics technology in the life science field he sees as an international problem. "There is no place to buy that." The solution, he believes, is to grow it at home, and to do that, "We have to work together."
John Houghton of Missouri Dept. of Economic Development drove this point home as well. "What do we really see when we look to big centers? He asked. The answer is their ability "to take research and transfer it out and make companies." There is little point to research, he implied, if its end result can't me made commercial. And if Kansas City doesn't start its own companies, he argued, someone else will and will reap the rewards thereof.
Jim Spigarelli of MRI observed that tech transfer and commercialization are as much a part of the Life Science Institute's mission as are education and R&D. He noted too that the Kauffman Foundation has a great interest in seeing this gets done. "I think the momentum is there to do that also," he said of commercialization. "It's just a little more complicated issue."
Karen Pletz of the University of Health Science marveled at how "well informed and interested in commercialization" were the international journalists who toured Stowers. She also noted that they were beginning to pay attention to Kansas City in this regard.
Joe Kornegay of the MU School of Veterinary Medicine in Columbia had an interesting take on this issue. . "From a commercialization standpoint," he noted, "there are other opportunities." He was referring specifically to agriculture and animal health, both of which fall within the sweep of life sciences. "There is tremendous synergy between disciplines," he added. "As you plan it behooves you to cast the initiative as broadly as possible."
Former mayor and self-described "pathologist" Charles Wheeler shared Kornegay's concerns about the direction of the initiative. "The emphasis on botany and horticulture and animal husbandry is an opportunity that we are letting pass," said Wheeler, not one to sugar coat anything. He envisioned an urban center in Kansas City that brought the region's agricultural schools together to work collaboratively. No one argued against this position, one that clearly builds on Kansas City's commercial legacy.
"Enabling technologies support biotechnologies across the board," argued Duncan who sees the Institute's role as "broader than just human focus."