HMS Strategic Planning |
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APRIL 10, 2008Message from the Dean
Dear Colleagues: In my last message, I discussed two of the White Papers recently produced by subcommittees of the Biomedical Research Areas advisory group. These papers analyze the situation at HMS in human genetics and immunology/inflammation. If you’re interested in these areas and have not yet had a chance to look at these documents, I urge you to download them, read them, and send any comments you may have either directly to the authors or to the comments section of this site. Today, I am delighted to be able to share two additional reports, this time representing the outputs of two complete teams: the Strategic Advisory Group on Education (SAGE), and the Tools and Technologies advisory group (TNT). Both groups have discussed their findings extensively with the Steering Committee, and have revised their reports in response to Steering Committee feedback. The revised reports were presented at a recent meeting, which President Drew Faust fortunately was able to attend. I have already mentioned a small part of the work of the SAGE in a previous message that discussed the possibility of a Scholarly Project requirement for MD students. The complete SAGE report is an extensive document that summarizes the work of six subcommittees that have met intensively over the last six months. I am extremely grateful to the team leaders, Thomas Michel and Orah Platt, for their energy and commitment in bringing this part of the process to a triumphant conclusion, and to all the team members who have worked so hard to determine how we can serve our students better. I will not attempt in this message to summarize the conclusions of the SAGE report. Instead I would like to draw your attention to a couple of recommendations that I think are particularly interesting. Masters in Medical Science New Programs in Global Health & Social Medicine Graduate Education This section of the report also details the specific challenges, both institutional and national, faced by interdisciplinary programs. HMS has taken leadership positions in many areas of interdisciplinary research, and for these areas to reach their full potential impact it is urgent that we address issues of joint curriculum planning, multidisciplinary teaching efforts, and the challenges of funding programs that do not fit neatly into NIH’s model for training. I expect to work with my colleagues at other Schools and at the University to address these questions in the near future. Tools and Technologies While we all recognize the importance of technology in driving biomedical research forward, and we have many outstanding faculty working in important technological areas, it is perhaps surprising to realize that HMS has absolutely no coordinated approach to identifying and addressing important technology opportunities. It is a tribute to the strength of our diverse community that we have strong technology efforts in most fields despite this, but there are major areas that could benefit considerably from a coordinated approach, including areas relevant to therapeutic discovery, imaging technologies — from the molecular level to whole-body scanning — and computational methods. A coordinated approach may be particularly important in lowering barriers to animal and human research. The complex regulatory requirements for animal studies and clinical trials in our multi-institutional environment have led to a situation where innovative mouse models of disease cannot be easily transferred from one researcher to another, and clinical trials that wish to make use of technology centers at multiple institutions must go through an extended process of obtaining approvals from multiple IRBs with conflicting priorities. Although much of this complexity is imposed by government regulations, I am convinced that improvements are possible, and I am committed to working with my colleagues throughout HMS to identify and implement simplifications to the current system. This area was also identified as a major priority in the Clinical and Translational Sciences Center application led by Lee Nadler and Steven Freedman. Perhaps the most important insight in the TNT report is that we need to divide technology development into three main stages: innovation, development/dissemination, and service and training. Each of these levels is essential to a healthy and integrated research community, but they offer distinct types of benefits. It is not usually possible for the individuals who are working on developing a technology also to offer a broadly available service center, for example. This point has been reinforced several times by Steering Committee members in our meetings, as well as the fact that exceptional service and training centers cannot be maintained in the absence of groups working at the innovation and development levels. Standing Advisory Group I believe that the work of the Strategic Planning Advisory Groups has provided a solid foundation for further discussion, but I do not view these reports as final or carved in stone. I very much look forward to your suggestions for amendments, expansions, or refinements of the proposals contained in any of the four reports now available on this website. You may e-mail comments to me directly, submit them (anonymously or signed) through the comments section, or discuss them with any member of the teams responsible for the report. Several additional reports are expected to be completed over the next two to three weeks, and will be published on this website as they become available. Jeffrey Flier
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