The Departmental Roadmap

I. Introduction and Objectives

The NIH recently published their “Roadmap for the 21st Century” (Science, 302:63-72, 2003). In this document 15 working groups laid out their view of the current and future state of biomedical science in the United States. Three major themes emerged from this effort that will guide NIH’s future intra- and extramural funding priorities over the next several years: “New Pathways to Discovery”, “Research Themes of the Future”, and “Reengineering of the Clinical Research Enterprise”.

“New Pathways to Discovery” refers to the investment in technologies that integrate information about complex biological systems, leading to an improved understanding of the molecular networks that comprise cells and tissues. Such technologies include the development of small molecule libraries, bioinformatics and computational biology, nanomedicine, and structural biology. “Research Themes of the Future” refers to the need for scientists to think “outside of the box”, and explore new interdisciplinary relationships. This will require dramatic cultural and organizational changes within the biomedical community, and there will be a special need to incorporate nontraditional teams of biological scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physical scientists, etc into working enterprises. “Reengineering of the Clinical Research Enterprise” refers to the need for academic clinical researchers to develop new partnerships among organized patient groups and community-based physicians. Emphasis will be placed on the development of new approaches that improve assessment of clinical outcomes, and on the development of regional, translational research centers. Expanded efforts also will be directed towards advanced training in clinical research, and developing and evaluating new drug treatments through clinical trials.

To address the NIH Roadmap and future NIH grant funding, the Chairman of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Dr. Robert J. Desnick, convened a committee on April 13th, 2004 to review the NIH Roadmap and to generate a Roadmap for the Department that will guide future research and educational planning in genetics and genomics sciences, and to identify appropriate recruitments. The committee members included Edward H. Schuchman, Ph.D., Committee Chair, Robert J. Desnick, Ph.D., M.D., Margaret McGovern, M.D., Ph.D., Kurt Hirschhorn, M.D., Bruce Gelb, M.D., David Bishop, Ph.D., Yiannis Ioannou, Ph.D., and Rong Wang, Ph.D. The committee met on several occasions and solicited input from all faculty, fellows and students. An initial draft of this document was sent to all faculty, fellows and students for review and comment.