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Nighttime view of Temple University Children's Medical Center Temple University Hospital in background, Kresge Hall (left) and Medical Research Building (right) in foreground Old Medical School building in foreground, Jones Hall, General Services building and Student Faculty Center to the right

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independence blue cross donates $3.5 million for heart research

The new School of Medicine building will house six research floors, including the Independence Blue Cross Cardiovascular Research Center. The space has been designed to allow scientists to operate in a flexible, integrated laboratory setting where they can share equipment and ideas. Artistic rendering courtesy of Ballinger.

The new School of Medicine building will house six research floors (above), including the Independence Blue Cross Cardiovascular Research Center. The space has been designed to allow scientists to operate in a flexible, integrated laboratory setting where they can share equipment and ideas. Artistic rendering courtesy of Ballinger.

 

Independence Blue Cross (IBC) has pledged $3.5 million to support heart research at Temple University’s School of Medicine.

 

The Independence Blue Cross Cardiovascular Research Center will occupy the top floor in the new $160 million state-of-the-art medical teaching and research building slated to open at Temple in 2009.

 

With IBC’s commitment, Temple’s School of Medicine has raised $34.5 million toward its goal of $50 million.  Other large gifts to the new medical building have come from a diverse group of individual and corporate donors, including $1 million from Cephalon Inc., a suburban Philadelphia biopharmaceutical company, and $1.8 million from the School of Medicine’s faculty and staff.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Temple University are each providing $50 million toward the project.

 

“Research is essential to providing quality medical education and patient care,” said John Daly, MD, Dean of the School of Medicine. “Through this gift, Independence Blue Cross shares our commitment to patient health and well-being as well as to the education of superior physicians and outstanding biomedical researchers.”

 

“An investment in Temple’s heart research center is an investment in our community and in the health of people throughout our region who benefit from heart research,” said Joseph A. Frick, IBC President and Chief Executive Officer. “That fits our mission of helping people live healthy lives."

 

"Our region is emerging as one of the world's great centers of life sciences, and Temple University is playing a lead role in building a reputation for Greater Philadelphia as a hub of scientific innovation," said Frank Baldino Jr., PhD, Cephalon founder, Chairman and CEO.  Baldino, who received a PhD in pharmacology from Temple, is Chairman of the Board of Visitors at the School of Medicine and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees.

 

Six of the 11 floors in the 460,000-square-foot new medical school facility will be devoted to research. The $160 million building, the largest construction project ever undertaken by Temple, will be located at the University’s Health Sciences Center along North Broad Street.  It is part of more than $400 million in capital projects currently under way at the University — the most comprehensive program of new construction and building renewal in Temple’s history.

 

Cardiovascular disease is a shared concern for both Temple and IBC. Chronic heart failure is the leading cause of death in the United States and carries a staggering economic burden. Members of the School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Research Center (CVRC), which will occupy the IBC Research Center, are among a small number of scientists nationwide who believe they have found an unorthodox but potentially better approach to treating heart failure: cardiac regeneration.   

 

Using one adult stem cell of the heart of a large mammal, CVRC scientists have successfully grown new heart tissue in the laboratory.  In Europe, 10 small clinical trials studying this technique have shown positive results. 

 

“The possibility of coaxing the failing heart to actually mend itself has created enormous interest at Temple — an excitement now underscored by the prospect of working in a spectacular new space,” said Steven Houser, PhD, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physiology and

Senior Associate Dean for Research. 

 

The Independence Blue Cross Cardiovascular Research Center will feature sophisticated technologies conducive to both collaborative and individual research pursuits in this and other areas of cardiovascular research.

 

Other interdisciplinary medical research centers operating at Temple are the Center for Neurovirology; the Center for Substance Abuse Research; the Sol Sherry Thrombosis Research Center; the Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology; and two new ventures — the Center for Minority Health and the Center for Obesity Research and Education.              

 

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- By Eryn Jelesiewicz

July 6, 2006