A Message From the Dean
A Setting for Synergy
In mid-September, close to the deadline for this issue of USC College Magazine, I announced a new Senior Faculty Initiative that is designed to propel USC College to the top ranks of private American colleges by the end of the decade. I hasten to point out that it is just one of the many innovative steps we will be taking to assure our continued growth in excellence.
New building for molecular and computational biology
We do a lot of talking in the College about interdisciplinary research. Now we’re about to put a building where our mouth is. We will soon break ground on a new science building containing 100,000 square feet of state-of-the-arts laboratory space.
I say arts in the plural because for the first time—perhaps anywhere—we will place in close proximity two once-separate and distinct disciplines: computational scientists who are for the most part mathematicians and computer specialists; and experimental biologists, the molecular biologists and biochemists who work at lab benches and test model systems.
They are “dry lab” people and “wet lab” people. Here at USC College they are working together with great success under the umbrella of the Center for Computational and Experimental Genomics. But there has been little “central” about the center.
For two decades, these scientists have collaborated because of their passionate, shared interest in learning more about the fundamentals of life—how genes work, how genes work together in life systems, what causes life systems to fail.
We expect the new building to be completed in 2005, and when it is these collaborating scientists now scattered throughout the College will come together in a magnificent setting—magnificent because it has been designed to stimulate and support interdisciplinary research. A computational biologist, for instance, will be able to stroll a few feet from his or her computer and compare ideas with a scientist running wet lab experiments on model systems. Proximity makes a difference, even in this age of e-mail, instant messaging, telephones and voice mail.
The synergy among our scientists will be built into the building. We have grown accustomed to great achievements from these scientists. But they are just beginning their paths to greatness.
Focus on the life sciences
This issue of USC College Magazine stresses the life sciences, an area of great strength at USC. It might surprise some people that the College is so rich in all of the sciences, but especially in the life sciences.
Science has been a main course on the menu of the College for more than 100 years. But it was just under a decade ago that the university made a commitment to focus on the life sciences. At the heart of that commitment are the interdisciplinary interactions and collaborations that have gained for USC scientists a reputation for groundbreaking research.
These collaborations stretch across all USC schools and campuses, from engineering and dentistry here on the University Park Campus, to cancer biology, genetic medicine, clinical medicine, psychiatry and pharmacology on the Health Sciences Campus, and genomics and proteomics at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, another bastion of excellent USC faculty.
They also reach across the country, to Boston and New York, San Diego and San Francisco, and around the world, to Europe and Asia.
The life sciences have captured the imagination of scientists everywhere, and that is fortunate for us because we all have a stake in the effort to combat diseases that are the scourge of society, from AIDS to Alzheimer’s.
Here in the College, as can be seen in the articles in this issue of the magazine, our expertise focuses on the areas of computational biology, neuroscience, molecular biology and marine biology.
The impact of our scientists’ contributions are felt close to home—in Orange County, marine biologists from the College are helping solve vexing pollution problems that are affecting popular swimming beaches—and globally, because everyone is reaping benefits from the Human Genome Project, built in part on fundamental work by USC scientists.
Joseph Aoun
Dean of the College
Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair |
