A Message From the Board of Councilors
Challenges Follow Glory
Within weeks, a new science building for USC College will be under construction on the parking lots in front of Kaprielian Hall.
The implications are enormous for human health, especially when one considers that one of the principal groups that will be housed there — computational biology — has provided the underpinning for one of the greatest achievements in the history of science, the Human Genome Project.
It is the pioneering work of Mike Waterman, Simon Tavaré, Norman Arnheim and their colleagues at USC and elsewhere that has made this possible. Waterman's mathematics wizardry sorted out the millions of genome fragments generated by PCR, the polymerase chain reaction co-invented by Arnheim. The combination of the two provided the tools for thousands of researchers around the world to focus on sequencing the genome.
One should not think of computational biology as an arcane, strictly basic science. It has serious, practical applications for medical science. Members of the Center for Computational and Experimental Genomics have numerous collaborations with physician-scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, for example, and are examining the genetics of cancer and diseases of the brain such as Huntington’s.
Waterman, Tavaré, Arnheim, and their associates, did their early work at a time when scientific equipment was rudimentary, relative to what's available today. Our computational biologists, molecular biologists and experimental genomics researchers have been scattered about the campus in little cottage-industry groupings.
It boggles the mind to ponder what giant steps these scientific giants will take when they are in an environment where there is the latest equipment and the computational types are working side by side with experimentalists, sharing data in real time with each other and with researchers focusing on specific diseases. Further, it’s exciting to know that this prestigious core group will help to attract new faculty, doubling the size of USC’s impressive programs.
The advances in research that will take place in the new building will directly advance cancer research because several of the leading faculty members in computational biology have active collaborations with cancer researchers at USC and elsewhere.
And the building will provide a focal point for area-wide collaborations that will make downtown Los Angeles the nexus for computational research for the entire nation.
Without doubt, an illustrious chapter in the history of USC is about to be written.
The worth is evident: USC College's bioinformatics faculty is head and shoulders ahead of the competition.
The urgency is likewise evident: If USC is to continue its advance into the top ranks of American research universities, it must move faster than the others, for its peers are moving ahead, too.
Certainly the groundbreaking for the building must be followed soon by the launching of a major drive to raise the funds to pay off the debt.
I hope all College alumni will participate in this effort. The new building, and the brilliant work that will take place there, will add value to USC, add prestige to the USC degrees of its alumni and allow Los Angeles to take its rightful place at the forefront of global bioinformatics.
Jana Waring Greer
Chair of the Life Sciences Committee
USC College Board of Councilors
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