February 6, 2006
Good morning, Chairman Morgan and members of the subcommittee. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning to discuss the Higher Education Research Initiative.
As you know, a number of recent studies have shown that America is losing its competitive advantage when it comes to the innovations that enhance our lives and propel our economies in today's "knowledge age." The report of the recent National Summit on Competitiveness titled "Investing in Innovation," summed up the situation in this way:
". . . if trends in U.S. research and education continue, our nation will squander its economic leadership, and the result will be a lower standard of living for the American people. . . . The good news is that America is able to meet these challenges from a position of economic strength."
These studies and reports are resonating around the nation. To quote President Bush's State of the Union Address, as he announced his "American Competitiveness Initiative."
"Groundbreaking ideas generated by innovative minds have paid enormous dividends -- improving the lives and livelihoods of generations of Americans. With more research in both the public and private sectors, we will improve our quality of life -- and ensure that America will lead the world in opportunity and innovation for decades to come."
There is no longer any question that future jobs and economic development are closely linked to a region's ability to innovate and provide new, high technology products and services.
The jobs of the future will come from discoveries in fields such as biotechnology, nanotecholgy, information technology, and other fields that are discovered and developed on university campuses.
Evidence to support this statement can be found by looking no further than VCU's Biotechnology Park and Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center. Our CRC, which is now 20 years old, holds about 130 small, high-tech companies with almost 2,000 employees, and its steady growth continues. The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, which started in the CRC with three employees six years ago, has now moved onto the main campus with 250 employees, and it is funding one of its two major facilities entirely through overhead earned on research grants.
The Biotech Park, now 10 years old, has 50 biosciences companies, research institutes affiliated with the VCU Medical Center, and laboratories and organizations involved with forensics, testing of biotoxins, and management of the nation's organ transplantation process.
And of course, the Biotech park has now attracted the $300 million Phillip Morris Research Center, which will have a major impact on the region's economy.
As another example, community leaders in Danville will tell you that the presence of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research has enabled them to begin to recruit companies that would never have considered locating there in the past.
While we await the details of President Bush's national initiative, we in Virginia must be prepared to compete with other states for these federal research dollars. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth has lagged behind competitor states such as North Carolina, Maryland, Texas, Georgia, and Florida in investments in university research. Tony Maggio went over this information with you at the Appropriations Committee Retreat, and so I will not repeat it here. I will just say that to begin to close this gap with our competitors, it is urgent that the Commonwealth invest in university-based research and development in carefully targeted areas, as proposed in the Higher Education Research Initiative.
However, beyond simple dollar calculations, I should emphasize that research at Virginia's universities is ultimately a very human endeavor that affects the lives and potential for Virginians. Rather than describing each initiative for each university, I would like to give you some examples of the beneficial results from on-going research in Virginia.
In 1999, Virginia Tech chemistry professors discovered how to encapsulate rare earth metals in the hollow interior of carbon molecules known as buckeyballs. The result was a nano-particle easily recognized by MRI techniques.
Last year, a Virginia Commonwealth University radiology professor was awarded a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute to lead a team of scientists from VCU and Virginia Tech to further develop, produce, and test these nanoparticles. Early tests have shown they can be used to identify brain tumor cells and selectively target them for radiation therapy.
In recent years, Old Dominion University has used virtual environments to show how battlefield surgeons and military checkpoint sentries can be trained effectively without exposing them to the real-world dangers of their jobs. Now, professors at the National Center for Collaboration in Medical Modeling and Simulation, which is jointly run by ODU and the neighboring Eastern Virginia Medical School, have developed a virtual operating room that may change the way physicians are trained. Faculty members have demonstrated the virtual OR in ODU's CAVE, a 3-dimensional virtual environment. Although it involved neither a patient nor functioning medical equipment, four real people dressed in surgical garb and two virtual physicians successfully performed a faithful simulation of a laparoscopic surgical procedure.
At George Mason University, the co-directors of its Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine have identified an archive of protein fragments in human blood that may be markers for early disease detection, prognosis, and treatment. This discovery will enable doctors to better pinpoint vital disease-related information. One example of its benefit is that it may useful in the early detection of ovarian cancer.
At the University of Virginia, a physics professor and an engineering professor have created "amorphous steel," a non-magnetic material that is three times stronger than conventional steel and has superior anti-corrosion properties. With further refinement, this new steel could be used for making ship hulls, lighter automobiles, tall buildings, corrosion-resistant coatings, surgical instruments, and recreational equipment. The scientists say commercial use of the material could be available within a few years. The two researchers were named among Scientific American's top 50 researchers for this innovative work.
While we believe that the right strategy is to concentrate investment, as recommended, on Virginia's most promising research programs, research institutions should look for collaborative opportunities with other Virginia institutions whenever possible. For example, Virginia Tech and Virginia State are partners in a large USAID grant to reduce pesticide use in agriculture in developing countries; a Radford Geology professor is a close colleague of our faculty in Geosciences, and so on. Opportunities such as this exist among all institutions, and we need to be alert for them whenever possible.
It is important is important to point that the Research Initiative, as proposed, is a one-time investment. The Initiative's design is that only about $15 million of the proposed $256 million investment would continue after 2008.
The remaining state general fund investment of $241 million includes funding for research facilities, equipment, and faculty recruitment and start-up costs. We anticipate an equal amount from non-general funds in the form of increased external grants and contracts that these funds will enable.
We have been asked whether one-time funding can be used productively to enhance our research programs, and the answer is a definite yes, for a number of reasons.
A key to successfully expanding research and development is the provision of start-up funds to attract faculty researchers. These funds pay recruitment packages that include adapting facilities, purchasing equipment and supplies, and sometimes hiring technically trained staff.
Start-up funding is essential to attracting outstanding researchers -- who usually have many options -- and to giving them the opportunity to be competitive as they seek outside funding. Each of our research institutions is constantly searching for faculty to fill positions opened through retirements and other reasons. At Virginia Tech, we have a carefully laid out plan to use our open positions for priority research areas. The provision of start-up funds can make the difference between hiring a good researcher and an outstanding senior faculty member who might bring with her large active grants and possibly a research team and a number of graduate students.
To illustrate, I would like to mention the two areas of research proposed for Virginia Tech in the budget.
First is Advanced Biomaterials Nanotechnology, to be housed in the proposed Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science. As the collaborative program with the VCU medical school suggests, the technologies developed will enable significantly earlier detection of disease and achieve much greater rates of recovery through assisting the body to repair itself. In addition, new nano-materials and devices, including fuel cells and sensors, will have applications in the fields of energy, health, and national security. Nineteen new positions in this field have been filled in the past two years, and searches are underway for another seventeen positions, all in science and engineering.
The second area for Virginia Tech is Host, Environment, and Pathogen Interaction. Building upon the success of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, we will address the threats of emerging new diseases and bioterrorism through acquisition of basic knowledge and the development of vaccines or other preventative measures against pathogens that pose a threat to humans, animals, or crops. This is done through intensive analysis of patterns of DNA made possible by the formidable super computing capabilities and software we have developed over the past several years. Twenty eight positions have been filled in the past two years in this field across science, engineering, agriculture, natural resources, and veterinary medicine, all of which have a role to play in the important arena.
I hope that I have shown how one-time funding is an important component in a successful research strategy, but in closing, it would be perhaps disingenuous to state—as one of our well-known former colleagues once did—that if you give us this money, we will never come back. The truth is that if the Commonwealth wants to move ahead over the long term, future investments will be not only necessary but appropriate. As our 20 year experience with the Corporate Research Center and the 10 year history of the Biotech Park demonstrate, research is not a sprint, it is a marathon. We are in it for the long haul, and we hope that the Appropriations Committee will be with us on this exciting journey.
I should also state that we expect to be held accountable for results, for how we perform, with your support, will have a profound effect on the future of our Commonwealth and the jobs and opportunities available to our children and grandchildren.
As Craig Barrett, the CEO of Intel Corporation, said, "One thing is certain. Our competitors will not wait for us . . . . they will continue to fuel the changes in education and infrastructure required to spark innovation." We have the opportunity in this session of the General Assembly to make a clear statement that Virginia intends to be a serious competitor not only with other states, but in the world.
Thank you again for this opportunity to discuss the importance of university-based research and the proposed Higher Education Research Initiative.