The Plain Dealer

 

Case gets $5 million to rethink therapies, launch new center

 

3-year grant is one of biggest in Cleveland Foundation history

 

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Regina McEnery

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

The nascent field of personalized medicine, where customized therapies may one day lead to better prevention and control of disease, has sparked one of the biggest grants in the Cleveland Foundation's history.

 

The three-year, $5 million grant is being given to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine but will extend to its academic partners in a collaborative effort. Specifically, the grant will help establish a department of immunobiology with the Cleveland Clinic and launch the Cleveland Foundation Center for Proteomics for the study of proteins.

 

Monday's announcement follows closely the arrival of protein biologist Dr. Mark Chance from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Chance invented a protein identification technique that is helping scientists identify better drugs for a number of common viral infections. Chance, who will be heading up the Cleveland Foundation for Proteomics, has brought 14 of his 15 researchers with him to Cleveland.

Compared to the major building projects that have been carried out on Cleveland's expanding medical metropolis in recent years, the Cleveland Foundation grant may seem rather small. But as the country's second-largest community foundation, its support is significant.

 

It is especially so for an economically depressed city that is trying to spawn jobs and commercial ventures through its existing medical research facilities.

The grant also represents an important step forward for Case and its academic partners at University Hospitals and the Clinic, which are forging new ties after more than a decade of acrimony and bitter rivalry. The foundation credited new leadership for the making the collaboration possible.

 

"There was a time when we couldn't have had this group lined up," said Ronn Richard, president of the Cleveland Foundation, who gathered with Cleveland Clinic chief Dr. Toby Cosgrove, University Hospitals chief Dr. Fred Rothstein and Dr. Ralph Horowitz, dean of the Case medical school.

 

Horowitz said the effort could potentially foster commercial ventures, partnerships with biotechnology companies and new patents.

 

Immunobiology, which studies the body's armor of defense mechanisms and the multitude of factors that cause it to derail, has developed rapidly since the completion of the human genome and the development of the field of genomics. It is a high-stakes, competitive field driven largely by Boston and San Francisco.

 

Immunobiology researchers at Case, who are now in different laboratories and buildings, will be located in a single department in the new Wolstein Research Building, which will act as a hub for research at Case, University Hospitals and the Clinic. Case will recruit a top immunologist to chair the department.

 

The Proteomics Center will be located on the ninth floor of Case's medical research building but will eventually move to a $125 million biotechnology campus under development at the site of the former Mt. Sinai Medical Center in University Circle.

The goal of both these programs is to redefine diseases on the molecular level so that physicians are able to tailor treatments for patients and presumably achieve better results.