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| Vol. 24., No. 12 | January 21, 1999 |
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| Vol. 24., No. 12 | January 21, 1999 |
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani chose Columbia's Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park to announce new efforts to bolster biomedical research and biotechnology in New York City.
Speaking on Dec. 8 in the conference room of the recently opened Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion, the mayor announced a seven-point plan, including the appointment of the Mayor's Task Force on Biomedical Research and Development. Herbert Pardes, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Faculty of Medicine, will cochair the task force.
"Since 1981, New York has fallen behind California and Massachusetts in total funding from the National Institutes of Health," the mayor said. "The federal government now plans to double NIH funding over the next five years. It is imperative that New York City position itself to secure its share of this funding and create economic opportunity for people throughout the city."
Pardes praised the mayor's emphasis on the need to capture NIH funding: "Biomedical research is one of the strongest areas of opportunity for attracting funding, founding new biotechnology companies, creating jobs, and stimulating the city's economy, while simultaneously producing the major new scientific discoveries that will lead to revolutionary lifesaving treatments."
Pardes noted that Columbia's strong growth in biomedical research funding, which consistently places it among the top eight institutions nationally in biomedical research funding, has been an exception to the general downward trend throughout the city and state over the past 15 years.
In a major commitment of financial support, the mayor reiterated his recent announcement that $12 million will be provided over two years to initiate a city-wide cancer epidemiology project that will collect, analyze, and disseminate cancer-related data from city residents. The multiyear, multigenerational project, conceptually comparable to the famous Framingham, Mass., study on heart disease, will be the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological study ever attempted. Twenty of the top academic medical centers and teaching hospitals in the city, including Columbia, are collaborating on the project.
The mayor also took note of the recently created New York Structural Biology Center, a project developed by the New York City Partnership together with nine research institutions. The center will be housed on the campus of CCNY. Columbia is a major participant in planning and implementing the structural biology project.
"New York City has more world-class medical research institutions than any other city in the world," the mayor said. The cancer and structural biology projects are examples of how cooperation among those institutions can propel New York City into a position of worldwide leadership in biomedical research and biotechnology, he said.
The mayor also announced that he would designate an advisor for medical research and development to be City Hall's liaison between industry and academia. He supports the creation of new biomedical research parks, citing Columbia's Audubon Park as a successful model of what can be achieved. He intends to implement support programs that will help institutions recruit scientific talent from around the nation and world and announced his support for federal legislation that increases the number of immigrant visas available for people in occupations requiring highly specialized knowledge and training.
Pardes said the biomedical R&D task force is being formed and expects to hold its first meeting very soon.
-Office of External Relations, Health Sciences