For Immediate ReleaseJuly 18, 2001
Contact: Dr. James Blank(330) 672-2263
Russell Vanderboom(216) 444-5830
Kent State, Lerner Research Institute at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Form Major Biomedical Partnership
KENT, Ohio -- Kent State University and the Lerner Research Institute at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation have formed a major biomedical research and educational partnership that will expand the region's focused expertise in biotechnology-related research at a time when that technology is being recognized as a priority industry of the future in Ohio and the nation.
The collaborative Ph.D. program, "Kent State University/Cleveland Clinic Foundation Cooperative Doctoral Program in Biomedical Sciences," will admit its first graduate students in September 2001. With significant potential for collaboration and cooperation, there are several areas of interest to both institutions, including but not limited to biochemistry, pathobiology, cancer biology, cardiovascular biology, computational biology, imaging, lipoprotein metabolism, neurochemistry, pathobiology, signal transduction and structural biology.
At its inception, the program will admit 10 new doctoral students a year for at least five years. The 10 students for the initial class will be chosen from current applicants to Kent State's graduate programs.
"This is an extremely exciting and timely collaboration," said Dr. Carol A. Cartwright, president of Kent State. "It is gratifying for us to be in a position to link with such a world-class research organization. We found that the strengths of the two institutions were highly complementary."
"By teaming with the Cleveland Clinic," Cartwright continued, "Kent State has enhanced its ability to attract top tier graduate-level students who will benefit by training in an institution that ranks seventh in the nation for the level of National Institutes of Health-funding to research institutions and is a major contributor to molecular medical research."
"Kent State offers a strong academic environment, an excellent and large pool of students and rich and diverse course offerings while the Cleveland Clinic has an internationally recognized research faculty, state-of-the-art research facilities and a wealth of superb training opportunities," observed George R. Stark, Ph.D., chairman of the Lerner Research Institute at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. "Together, the Cleveland Clinic and Kent State will offer students excellent laboratory research opportunities and a solid, challenging curriculum of course offerings."
The agreement will strengthen Northeast Ohio's higher education links to the proposed "Ohio Plan," a state initiative to nurture promising work in biotechnology, nano-technology and information technology.
Faculty in the Cleveland Clinic-Kent State programs will come primarily from the Lerner Research Institute and from Kent State's School of Biomedical Sciences and departments of biological sciences and chemistry.
Kent State is Ohio's third-largest university, with approximately 33,000 students on eight campuses. The university also is third in Ohio in the number of doctoral graduates and doctoral programs. Kent State is ranked among the nation's top 90 public research universities, and balances a focused research effort with excellence in undergraduate education and service to businesses, organizations and the public.
The Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute is the nation's seventh largest research institute in terms of NIH-funded research. Research at the Lerner Research Institute is currently conducted in the laboratories of approximately 130 principal investigators in a broad range of scientific disciplines. During the 2000-2001 academic year, approximately 90 graduate students from four universities conducted research with laboratories at the Lerner Research Institute.
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, founded in 1921, integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education in a private, non-profit group practice. Approximately 1,100 full-time salaried physicians at the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Florida, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties, provided care through more than 1.7 million outpatient visits and 50,000 hospital admissions in 1999 for patients from throughout the United States and more than 80 countries.
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