Establishing a new committee or trans-University department for human genetics and fortifying the existing Committee on Immunology with more resources and influence are among the initial recommendations of the Biomedical Research Advisory Group (BRAG).
Part of Dean Jeffrey Flier’s strategic planning process, BRAG emphasizes Harvard’s strong position in genetics and immunology in reports on these areas of research. Shouldering an ambitious charge, the group is also issuing reports on therapeutics and chemical biology, organizational structures, neurobiology, and other areas. (The first of these has been posted on the strategic planning website; see URL below.)
“We are sitting in one of the powerhouses of human genetics,” said co-chair Christine Seidman, the Thomas W. Smith professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and HMS. BRAG chairman Bruce Spiegelman, HMS professor of cell biology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, calls HMS immunologists “fantastic” and says “they’ve been working very effectively together.”
Yet needs remain in both areas. As for immunology, “I think the committee feels that it would like to have more of a seat at the table when decisions are made at the Medical School,” said Spiegelman. BRAG’s report recommends that the chairman of the Executive Committee for Immunology receive formal appointment from the HMS dean and a seat on “any governing council of preclinical department chairs.” It further suggests that the executive committee help identify potential recruits and promotions for the immunology/inflammation faculty and that financial backing be provided.
Currently, “if somebody at the Quad or affiliated hospitals hires an immunologist, that person can be invited into the Program in Immunology by the Committee on Immunology. The approach has worked well, but that’s basically a passive approach for the committee,” Spiegelman said.
Beyond these structural changes, BRAG also recommends additional money for current immunology programs that it calls underfinanced. These include the committee’s weekly seminars and yearly retreat, its administrative assistance, its graduate student program and summer undergraduate program, and its teaching across the board, from undergraduate instruction at Harvard University to its graduate and undergraduate work at the Medical School. BRAG also suggests seed grants for immunology research.
For human genetics, the “powerhouse” nodes of Harvard’s genetics infrastructure need to be better linked to promote more collective research, according to Seidman. The proposed committee or trans-University department would be the connective tissue holding them together, in the view of BRAG.
It is essential not to sacrifice the strengths of the existing, widely dispersed community of geneticists, Seidman stressed. “There are major research and clinical human genetic endeavors at every institution you can name that’s affiliated with Harvard. Our hospitals are distributed; therefore, human genetics must be distributed.”
BRAG would charge the new committee or department with recruiting “the world’s leading faculty in human genetics”; attracting students and fellows; translating discoveries from lab to patient diagnosis and treatment; and spotlighting geneticists’ needs, such as technology.
“Our high-technology, big machines require considerable investment to purchase and run,” Seidman said. “Most importantly, they are in rapid evolution. They will change in the next two years. The investment in them is essential to continue to fuel discovery and harness it for better diagnosis and treatment of patients.”
The recommendations for both human genetics and immunology ride on BRAG’s realization of both fields’ critical importance in medicine. “The ability of human genetics to make huge differences in diagnosis and predictive recognition of disease is extraordinary,” noted Seidman. “For medicine to realize the full potential of human genetics will require collaborative investment and effort by Harvard Medical School and the broad Harvard hospital community.”
Spiegelman, meanwhile, said that work in immunology and inflammation “cuts across biomedical science, including metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease. This is an opportunity to build up the immunology program in a way that benefits many other biomedical programs.”
The initial reports from BRAG are being posted on the strategic planning website, and comments from the community are welcome.
