Genomic Centers Move Forward

While many other universities founded genome research centers to participate in the Human Genome Project, Harvard did not.

But a little over a year after researchers presented their landmark map of the human genetic code, Harvard is gearing up for the aftermath.

This winter, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences formally dedicated its Bauer Center for Genomics Research, a project that took shape only as the genome results were coming in.

And this spring the Harvard Medical School (HMS) and two of its affiliated hospitals are accelerating work on a joint center for genetics research, the latest evidence that the University and its affiliates are stepping up efforts to expand their presence in the growing field.

Now that the genetic map has been established, Harvard is consolidating its efforts, turning to practical applications and taking advantage of an explosion in funding for genome research.

The collaboration between HMS and Partners HealthCare—the parent company that operates Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital—aims to centralize facilities and programs in an area in which some say Harvard’s efforts have been scattershot.

The new Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics will bring together researchers from HMS and the hospitals, invest in expensive high-output technologies and provide clinical services and genetic testing for patients.

Randy Mason, the center’s chief administrative officer, said that while HMS and the hospitals have had individual labs and departments doing critical work in genomics, they lacked a unified approach at the height of work on the human genome mapping.

“For some reason the Brigham and the MGH and Harvard didn’t play in the game...didn’t put together a coordinated collaborative effort to create a genome center,” Mason said.

Genomics work, including analysis of genome databases and protein-mapping experiments, continues in existing HMS programs, said HMS spokesperson Don L. Gibbons.

But he said the new center would make way for stronger ties between all of HMS’ genomics researchers.

The hospitals have provided initial funding of $50 million and lend their huge patient bases and banks of genetic information to the endeavor.

HMS will provide faculty appointments for the center’s researchers and will raise further funds for the center as part of its upcoming fundraising effort for research in the life sciences, Mason said.

The center’s researchers will share part of a planned research building, where HMS plans to move its genetics department.

The center officially opened last September when it lured Raju Kucherlapati away from the genomics institute at Albert Einstein College of Medicine to join the HMS-Partners center as its scientific director. But many of the center’s programs are slated to first get underway this spring and summer.

HMS is searching for two new senior faculty members, the first step toward the center’s goal of five to 10 senior appointments, Mason said. He said that with 10 to 15 junior faculty, as well as technicians and administrators, the center’s staff could number as many as 200.

The center is in the process of building “service centers” that would allow researchers from across the hospitals and the University to conduct genomics research without having to invest in expensive technologies on their own.

And, by this summer, Mason said the center plans to have a Cambridge-based facility that would collect and test human DNA up and running.

In the meantime, the center plans to produce an $8 to $10 million big-screen IMAX movie about genomics to advertise its work.

The opening of the HMS-Partners center comes as the University turns more and more of its attention to programs in genetics and genomics.

University President Lawrence H. Summers has said expansion in the life sciences—and genetics in particular—will be crucial in Harvard’s future.

He has spoken of harnessing the revolution in genetics to make Boston a “Silicon Valley” for biomedical research. Since Summers’ arrival, a plan to use University land in Allston for a new science campus has gained greater attention.

According to Mason, the new genome center’s director has met with the University president and “is thrilled to death” when Summers talks about a revolution in the life sciences.

“They are definitely on the same page,” Mason said.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.