HBC faculty and staff members and other Kansas City area scientists are following many avenues to create a life sciences movement in the Kansas City metropolitan region. One part of this effort has been to create the "University of Kansas-Midwest Research Institute Alliance," or KUMRI Alliance. This association works to create an environment for research collaboration among scientists at the two institutions.

KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway and MRI Chief Operating Officer James Spigarelli initiated this drive to promote collaboration on research projects of mutual interest. The Alliance is initially focused on biomedical engineering, pharmaceuticals, and information technology. Steering committee members say that the promise of the KUMRI alliance rests on the diverse expertise and history of the participating organizations.

The KUMRI Strategic Alliance Steering Committee formally began its efforts in 1999 to establish the groundwork for this affiliation. Members of the steering committee are: KU Medical Center Vice Chancellor for Research Michael Welch; KU Medical Center Research Institute Director of Technology Transfer James Baxendale; KU Vice Chancellor for Research and Public Service Robert Barnhill; Higuchi Biosciences Center Executive Director Charles Decedue; Midwest Research Institute Director William Duncan and MRI scientist Patricia Swann."The main goal of KUMRI is to increase the volume of basic research, to make these entities more competitive in securing federal and corporate research dollars by pooling our intellectual and physical resources (facilities)," Decedue said. In its formally listed goals, the steering committee states it would like to realize a research volume of $50 million per year that is directly attributable to the KUMRI Alliance by 2010.

One early outcome of this effort was the KUMRI Alliance mixer this fall at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City on September 19. Swann said that it was a great success with more than 200 scientists attending the event to meet possible research collaborators. "There were some people from the Lawrence campus who met people from the Medical Center for first time and found they had scientific interests in common and of course there were MRI people meeting KU people for the first time," she said. "There were people still talking long after we thought the mixer would be over. We received several good comments afterwards."

The mixer was the most visible effort to encourage research collaboration. Decedue said other steps taken include the establishment of a common capabilities database for KU and MRI researchers detailing their expertise, facilities and equipment. He said the Alliance also has created two research grants and joint post-doctoral fellowships among the institutions.

For more information about scientists from these organizations who are participating in the research alliance, please visit the alliance’s website: http://www.kumri.net/. Swann said that there should be a text-searchable database assessible from the website in early 2001 that contains the complete curriculum vitaes for participating scientists.