Newswise — NYU Langone Medical Center announced today that it has created a series of Centers of Excellence, assembling some 260 distinguished scientists into collaborative hubs to accelerate discovery and advance health care. The first six Centers of Excellence will address some of the most pressing health challenges in the U.S. and around the world, including Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, addiction, multiple sclerosis, skin cancer, urological diseases, and musculoskeletal diseases. Many of these are chronic and persistent health conditions that affect the quality of daily life for the aging boomer population.
The goal of the Centers of Excellence initiative is to foster a highly collaborative model of multidisciplinary scientific investigation, including basic scientists and clinical researchers, not only to inspire new ideas and discoveries, but also to more swiftly translate advances into new ways of diagnosing and treating patients and preventing disease.
"As science methodology, information, and expertise become increasingly complex and sub-specialized, team science will become an ever-more important part of the research spectrum," says Robert I. Grossman, M.D., dean and CEO of NYU Langone Medical Center. "Perspectives from different fields help to spark creativity and discovery in seemingly disparate areas."
"The Centers of Excellence initiative is designed to achieve a highly successful model of collaboration at NYU Langone, by providing the structures, supports and resources to foster cross-pollination among the basic and clinical sciences and the clinical specialties," explains Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., vice dean for science, senior vice president, and chief scientific officer. "As a leading academic medical center with an exceptionally broad base of scientific and clinical expertise, we are well positioned to build bridges and create synergies that promote discovery and advance the practice of health care."
The Centers of Excellence initiative was made possible, in part, by gifts from Thomas S. Murphy, a member of the NYU Langone Medical Center Board of Trustees, and philanthropist Fiona Druckenmiller, a fellow trustee, and her husband, Stanley. Approximately $15 million will be allocated to the new centers in the first round of funding.
Funds will also be directed toward improving the Medical Center's core facilities -- genomics, proteomics, microscopy and imaging, bioinformatics and statistical consultation.
"Research conducted in the Centers of Excellence will be informed by first-hand experiences with patients and, in turn, the results of our research will provide new opportunities and hope to patients and their families," says Dr. Lee.
Six Centers Focus on Existing NYU Strengths
Six centers have been established in the first round of funding, building on existing strengths at NYU:
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Brain Aging and Dementia will bring together scientists and clinicians from more than a dozen NYU programs in aging and dementia, including the Alzheimer's Disease Center, one of 30 NIH-funded programs in the country; the Silberstein Institute's Aging and Dementia Research Center, one of the oldest clinical research centers in the world; and the Barlow Center for Memory Evaluation and Treatment, which provides "one-stop" multidisciplinary evaluation and treatment. The group will study fundamental disease processes of dementias, develop new diagnostic tools and therapies, and explore new psychosocial interventions for patients and caregivers.
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Addiction will investigate new ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat behavioral addictions to gambling, eating disorders and sexual risk-taking, as well as use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit and prescribed drugs. Together, these addictions lead to more death and disability than any other preventable health condition. The center will draw on expertise from NYU as well as from prestigious programs at partner institutions: the Nathan Kline Institute, the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the New York Academy of Medicine, and NYU affiliates Bellevue Hospital Center and the Manhattan" VA New York Harbor Healthcare System.
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Multiple Sclerosis will focus on MS, a chronic, insidious disease of the central nervous system that affects approximately 400,000 Americans. The center will couple state-of-the-art clinical care provided at the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases with innovative neuroimaging research at NYU School of Medicine and the Nathan Kline Institute. Basic science laboratories at the main campus of NYU that are focused on elucidating underlying biology of MS and on mechanisms that promote repair and protection of nervous system are integral participants in the collaborative effort.
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Musculoskeletal Disease will address disorders of the muscles, bones, and joints, the number-one-cause of disability worldwide, leading to $240 billion in lost productivity in the U.S. alone. The center will build on NYU expertise in arthritis and in the repair and regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues. Collaborative studies will examine the basic biology of joint tissues and their functional decline with aging, develop methods to promote the regeneration of these tissues, and apply bioengineering to design more effective implants to replace defective or injured bone and cartilage.
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Cancers of the Skin will concentrate on the most common form of cancer in the U.S., with more than 1,000,000 new cases diagnosed annually. The center will pool the talents of some 40 researchers from over a dozen disciplines, studying everything from genetic risk factors to vaccine strategies. It will also offer patients unprecedented scientific focus on specific conditions, such as specialized clinics for organ transplant patients with skin cancer, as well as unique therapeutic protocols developed at NYU.
"¢ The Center of Excellence on Urologic Disease will bring together approximately three dozen basic scientists and clinical researchers from 12 academic departments to discover and implement innovative treatments for such prevalent urological disorders as prostate cancer, bladder cancer, urinary tract infection, and kidney stone disease. Areas of focus include improving detection of low-risk prostate cancers that can be treated with minimally invasive therapies; and how bladder-specific cancer markers discovered at NYU can be used to assess effectiveness of bladder cancer treatments.
About NYU Langone Medical CenterOne of the world's premier academic medical institutions for more than 167 years, NYU Langone Medical Center continues to be a leader in patient care, physician education and scientific research. NYU Langone Medical Center is internationally renowned for excellence in areas such as cardiovascular disease, orthopaedics, pediatrics, skin care, neurosurgery, imaging, urology, cancer care, rehabilitation medicine, plastic surgery, minimally invasive surgery, transplant surgery, infertility, and women's health.
RSS