Scientific environment

SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT

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  The SCC supports eight research programs in 1) prevention and control, 2) clinical and translational research, 3) genetics, 4) cellular proliferation, 5) developmental biology, 6) immunology, 7) stem cell biology and 8) imaging and ten resources shared with the ICTS and other entities.
  
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  The SCC comprises 107,422 SF and houses a 61-chair/bed infusion center, investigational pharmacy, clinical trials office, and multidisciplinary outpatient practices. All adult outpatients being treated for cancer are seen in this central facility, and the oncology inpatient floors are immediately adjacent to the outpatient floors dedicated for the SCC.
  
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  The Kling Center for Proton Therapy, launched in 2009, is the first implementation of a single vault proton therapy center and one of only six proton therapy centers in the U.S.
  
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  The SCC maintains a 2,615 SF FDA registered modern pharmaceutical cleanroom facility dedicated to the manufacture of custom biologics and drugs under current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) conditions through the Biologic Therapeutics Center. This facility houses six (6) independent manufacturing suites (ISO Class 7, Class 10,000) with positive pressure to adjacent areas, equipped with biological safety cabinets and incubators, pass-through both sides, seamless cove base, intermediate entry rooms (Iso Class 8), separate gowning rooms (G1, G2), unidirectional traffic flow for personnel and materials and validated dual-door autoclave.
  
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  The SCC also provides patients with educational resources and support through a street-level Health and Cancer Information Center. The CAM has been designed to be a building within a building, having its own unique identity, lobby elevators and waiting areas and is located on the northern edge of the Medical School Campus.
  
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  The SCC supports one of only three NCI Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grants in the US that focus on leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes. The SPORE is the cornerstone program of the National Cancer Institute’s effort to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary translational cancer research. The SCC SPORE also supports a Career Development Program to recruit and mentor new investigators in translational leukemia research and a Developmental Research Program to support innovative translational concepts.
  

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  The Center for Vaccine Development at SLU Medical Center is a multi-disciplinary research center designed to conduct basic and clinical research on new vaccines and biologics. The Center occupies ~20,600 SF on the first floor of the Edward A. Doisy Research Center on the SLU Medical campus, completed in 2007 at a cost $82 million. The Vaccine Center aims to provide volunteer education to promote health and infectious disease prevention, and engage with the community to conduct trials in accordance with good clinical practices that will lead to decreases in health care costs through primary prevention of infectious disease. Nearly a dozen vaccine trials have been conducted or are currently active, several involving pediatric populations or older adults. The Center ranks among an elite group of nine Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs) eligible to bid on up to nearly $1 billion in NIH projects that will study protecting people from infectious diseases, including emerging threats. The SLU VTEU was recently awarded a five-year, $5.8 million contract from the NIH and the unit was designated as one of two in the country that have been designated by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to conduct -omics assessments on multiple potential vaccines to protect against infectious diseases.
  
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  The Center for World Health and Medicine (CWHM) was founded by a multidisciplinary team of former pharmaceutical company scientists at SLU in 2010 as a not-for-profit research center dedicated to the discovery and development of medicines to treat diseases that predominantly affect the world’s poor and underserved patient populations. CWHM partners with researchers at SLU and other collaborators around the world to overcome translational gaps in the pathway from early compound leads to true drug candidates. The CWHM is housed in the new Doisy Research Center in over 2,500 SF of laboratory space equipped with many former Pfizer research instruments.
  

Founded in 1864, St. Louis College of Pharmacy (STLCOP) is the 10^th-largest college of pharmacy in the US. STLCOP is located on nine acres in the heart of one of the world’s finest biomedical and patient-care centers, immediately east of the Medical School Campus, where it forges active partnerships with nearby institutions such as WUSM, SLU, and Goldfarb School of Nursing. STLCOP stresses global prominence in pharmacy and health care education, interprofessional patient-centered care, and collaborative research.

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  STLCOP co-founded the Center for Interprofessional Education with Goldfarb School of Nursing and WUSM to jointly educate students in the health professions to provide evidence-based, patient-centered interprofessional care.
  
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  In a unique partnership announced in 2015, STLCOP and WUSM collaborated to create the Center for Clinical Pharmacology (CCP), designed to uncover better, safer, and more effective ways to use prescription medications to improve health. The CCP has five purpose-built laboratories occupying 12,000 SF in STLCOP’s new Academic and Research Building, located at Taylor and Duncan Avenues on the Medical School Campus.
  

The University of Missouri-Columbia (MU), founded in 1839 in Columbia, MO, is the flagship campus of the University of Missouri System. MU offers more than 280 degree programs among its 17 colleges and professional schools, and has a total enrollment of more than 32,000 students. MU is designated “Highest Research Activity” by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, and is a member of the prestigious American Association of Universities (AAU). MU is a public institution that is one of only six universities nationwide with schools of medicine, veterinary medicine, law, engineering, agriculture, and a university hospital all on the same campus, and is one of only 13 universities with both an accredited school of medicine and an accredited college of veterinary medicine. As the first public university west of the Mississippi River, Columbia, midway between St. Louis and Kansas City, is a growing community with a population of more than 102,000. ICTS is partnering with five Schools and Colleges: the School of Medicine (SOM), School of Journalism, the Sinclair School of Nursing (SSON), and the Colleges of Engineering and Veterinary Medicine.

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  The School of Medicine (SOM) is a pioneer in the problem-based learning style of medical education that emphasizes problem solving, self-directed learning, and early clinical experience. In addition, the SOM Family Medicine Program ranked #7 in the U.S. News and World Report in 2015 and the Pre-Admissions Program and the Rural Track Program offered through the school give students an opportunity to gain education and experience practicing medicine in a rural area. A faculty of 100 basic scientists and 513 clinicians oversee the education and professional development of 392 medical students, 427 residents and fellows in 23 specialty programs, and 342 PhD and master’s degree candidates. Since 2000, more than 100,000 SF of medical laboratory space has been created at the Life Sciences Center and in labs for medical research through construction and renovation at the SOM, Truman Veterans Hospital and Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. New buildings supporting medical research were completed in 2015 include MU's Biochemistry Complex, International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine, and Regional Biocontainment Laboratory. Radiopharmaceutical sciences is a signature program through the SOM, which supports biomolecular imaging and, through the MU-Research Reactor, provides the most powerful university research reactor and the largest producer of radioisotopes for biomedical and medical applications in the nation.
  
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  In 2007, the MU Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (iCATS) was established to provide an infrastructure for clinical and translational research, and bridge the gap between clinical and basic scientists. MU-iCATS is a campus-wide institute supported by twelve schools and colleges that is housed on the fifth floor of the Medical Science Building and aims to foster translational research by expanding the reach of basic science into clinical medicine. Under the authority of the MU Vice Chancellor for Research, MU-iCATS includes a state-of-the-art Clinical Research Center (CRC) that opened in 2012, as well as several support cores and services. iCATS is the focal point of MU's efforts to develop clinical and translational science programs that improve health through better research, education, and public service. By encouraging collaboration and sharing of resources through partnership with the WU Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS), these programs also improve innovation, productivity, and efficiency of our region.
  
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  The MU School of Journalism, formed in 1908, was the first school of professionalism journalism established in the world. Providing practical hands-on training in real-world news media and strategic communication agencies, the Journalism School aims to communicate the benefits of clinical and translational research to health care providers, policy makers, and communities through the Health Communication Research Center (HCRC). Supporting Health Literacy Missouri, the HCRC adopted evidence-based practices to create tailored stories with data and information specific for interests in each community with a media outlet (newspaper, radio or television station) that could be augmented with standard public relations practices to enhance local messaging within the community. In over two years of this targeted program, disseminated news stories were picked up more than 600 times by 123 different newspapers covering 86 Missouri counties, with nearly 90% of the features covered in rural areas.
  
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  The Sinclair School of Nursing (SSON) was rated as the top nursing school program in the country by CollegeAtlas.org in 2014, offering degree opportunities such as a bachelor’s degree, an online RN to BSN option, an accelerated BSN program, a master’s program, a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), and a PhD degree. The DNP at SSOM received a 2015 Central Region Excellence Award for its on-line course programming, joining nine additional specialist nursing programs in distance learning initiatives offered by MU. The SSOM has been in the top 20 percent of nursing research institutions receiving NIH grant funding in three of the past four years. Since 2012, the SSON has held a $14.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reduce avoidable re-hospitalizations among nursing home residents and created the vision for TigerPlace (detailed below in Resources), a facility partnered with Americare and the College of Engineering that combines cutting-edge technology and current research to enable older adults to continue living longer in an assisted-living environment, a practice called Aging in Place (AIP).
  
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  Research programs in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine (MU-CVM) contribute to the advancement of science and significantly enhance the quality of professional education, including statewide leadership on the One Health initiative, a worldwide strategy for expanding interdisciplinary collaboration, education and communication in all aspects of health care that converge on animal and human health in the context of the environment. The Clinical Translational Science Award One Health Alliance (COHA) is comprised of veterinary schools partnered with medical and other colleagues through a NIH CTSA, aiming to advance understanding of diseases shared by humans and animals. The MU-CVM complex is made up of five buildings on the southeast corner of the MU campus: Connaway Hall, the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, the Veterinary Medicine Building, the Veterinary Health Center (Clydesdale Hall), and the Veterinary Medical Science Building. The MU-CVM supports clinical trials through the Veterinary Health Center, which provides first access to proposed new treatments and studies to improve diagnosis or monitor disease in internal medicine, orthopaedics, neurology, and oncology medical services. The Companion Animal Clinic boasts one of the few veterinary medical cancer treatment programs in the country, mimicking the same cancer-fighting techniques and technology as in human hospitals. Cancer diagnosis is aided by use of a Spiral CT scanner and one of the few linear accelerators in the world dedicated to animal use.
  

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  The Center for Community Health Partnerships and Research (CCHPR) (detailed below in Resources) was formed by merging the IPH Center for Community Health Partnerships and the ICTS Center for Community Engaged Research.
  
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  Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease (CGHID) was initiated in 2012 through support of the Departments of Medicine, Molecular Microbiology, and Pathology and Immunology. It serves as the hub for numerous initiatives related to global infectious diseases, built on a broad infectious diseases research portfolio that focuses on disease pathogenesis, immunology, pathogen genomics, as well as diagnosis and treatment. The CGHID aims to be recognized as an international authority in global infectious diseases by fostering a transdisciplinary program in education, research, and service that will make significant contributions to prevention and treatment of global infectious diseases, thereby improving the health and well-being of people throughout the world.
  
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  Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging (detailed below in Resources) aims toward a global society where all older adults have maximum opportunity for health, security, and engagement. as described in the main Resources section.
  
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  Public Health Data and Training Center (detailed below in Resources) aims to put public health data into action by promoting its effective use in research, practice, and policy.
  
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  The Center for Health Economics and Policy (CHEP) encourages the development of evidence-based research focused on improving the health and dissemination of work to policymakers and other stakeholders. The CHEP provides seminar series charting impact evidence for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and improving care for patients at high risk of hospitalization in a reforming health care system. Access to analytic tools that that support research in health economics and policy is provided in a succinct, accessible style, such as workshops on using restricted use Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a set of large-scale surveys of families and individuals, their medical providers, (doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, etc.), and employers across the United States.
  
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  The Center for Dissemination and Implementation seeks to ensure that the most effective services are delivered in health and public health settings, and provides support for the WU Network for Dissemination and Implementation Research (WUNDIR) (detailed separately in Resources) and two funding programs designed to support innovative projects focused on improving the dissemination and implementation of health interventions.