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 VCU entered a new era in spring 2000 when it implemented, as one of its highest priorities, a new formal university-wide matrix academic organization called VCU Life Sciences.
VCU Life Sciences comprises the resources and interests not
only of the Monroe Park Campus and the MCV Campus, but also the
Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, and the Inger and Walter Rice
Center for Environmental Life Sciences, a property of 342 acres
overlooking the James River in Charles City County. The $27 million
Eugene P. and Lois E. Trani Center for Life Sciences houses administrative
offices, the two research centers described below, state-of-the-art
laboratories and classrooms, a climate-controlled greenhouse, and
one of the largest aquatics laboratories in Virginia. VCU Life Sciences
has administrative offices in the Trani Center on the Monroe Park
Campus and in the Samuel Putney House on the MCV Campus.
VCU Life Sciences has expanded VCU’s large-scale life
sciences research infrastructure
by establishing and maintaining research centers, core facilities
and consortia. The research centers include the Center for the Study
of Biological Complexity and the Center for Environmental Studies.
The core facilities include the Bioinformatics Computational Core
Laboratories of the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity,
the MicroArraying Suite and the Satellite Lab of the Nucleic Acid
Research Facility (NARF), the Mass Spectrometry Center for the Study
of Biocomplexity, and the Environmental Technology Lab of the Center
for Environmental Studies. The Nucleic Acids Research Facility,
the Mass Spectrometry Center for the Study of Biocomplexity, and
the Bioinformatics Computational Core Laboratories support research
specific to the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity. The
VCU Proteomics Center, with operations on both campuses at VCU,
will be an important factor in allowing VCU researchers to remain
competitive in the post-genomic era.
VCU
Life Sciences offers degree programs
that include bachelor’s degrees, combined bachelor’s/master’s
degrees, master’s degrees and doctoral degrees. The new B.S.,
M.Env., and M.S. programs in Environmental Studies are administered
through the Center for Environmental Studies. The Center for the
Study of Biological Complexity administers the new B.S., M.Biof.
and M.S. programs in Bioinformatics. Our new Ph.D. in Integrative
Life Sciences is one of the first systems biology Ph.D. programs
in the United States, with a core curriculum focused on biological
complexity.
VCU Life Sciences conducts extensive public service activities,
many focused on public education at the local, regional and national
level through our Center
for Life Sciences Education. The local public education activities
include the SMV-VCU Mini-Med School, the Maymont-VCU Discovery Institute,
the VCU Life Sciences Scholars Program, and the VCU Internship in
Life Sciences Entrepreneurship. Regional public education activities
include The Virginia Governor’s School in Life Sciences and
Medicine and outreach activities at the Rice Center for Environmental
Life Sciences. National public education activities include the
development of educational materials using existing episodes of
the weekly public television series “Secrets of the Sequence,”
the annual VCU Life Sciences Survey, the We See U in the Life Sciences
national life sciences careerguide for middle school/ high school
students, and the VCU Bioinformatics and Bioengineering Summer Institute.
I hope that those people who are considering joining our student body or faculty ranks will drill deep into our Web site to get a better understanding of the remarkable scholarship and instruction in VCU Life Sciences.
Thomas F. Huff
Vice Provost for Life Sciences
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