the state-of-the-art outpatient facility, the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. INCUBATE, ADVANCE, ACCELERATE Collins, in his presentation, described some of the areas of innovation in which the NIH is investing. At an event celebrating the Translational Research Center, it was especially appropriate that Collins also noted that the NIH has established a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; its mission is to catalyze the development and testing of novel diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions. He made clear that it was not a matter of making discoveries but of helping move the discoveries along – building a bridge across what is often a daunting gap. In this category, one of the interesting plans is to examine the oversight process for new drugs, which Collins described as “failure-prone and very expensive.” Another plan is to explore new uses for abandoned and approved therapeutics – “to liberate these compounds,” as he put it, that have already been shown to be safe for humans. Collins also cited some recent Penn successes. One is the work of Jean Bennett, M.D., Ph.D., and Albert Maguire, M.D., in restoring some sight to patients with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis, a rare disease. (“Isn’t that amazing!” exclaimed Collins.) Another example is the success of Carl June, M.D., who happened to be one of the event’s faculty panelists. June and his team, working with Sangamo BioSciences, have used engineered zinc finger proteins to modify the T cells of a patient with HIV/AIDS. The procedure knocks out the CCR5 gene necessary for HIV infection. Then the modified cells are put back in the patient, and there is no need for immunosuppression. In nine patients so far, the engineered cells remained free of infection, and they multiplied dramatically in eight of the nine
cases. Building resistance to HIV in this way appears to be a very promising direction. As Collins put it, “it’s just one example of the kinds of things that are now becoming possible with this combination of technologies being applied from basic to clinical and which I think will be a wonderful incubator, right here, at this Translational Research Center.” LOOKING BACK AND AHEAD In her opening remarks, Amy Gutmann, Ph.D., president of the University of Pennsylvania, thanked Collins for the $13 million Penn received last year from the National Institutes of Health as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, specifically to construct additional research space in the TRC. (All told, Penn Medicine received more than $185 million in ARRA funds.) The new center, she said, “represents our hope for the future of medicine at Penn.” In addition to celebrating the opening of the new center, the event was also the occasion for celebrating Arthur Rubenstein. He was praised for his role in making the TRC a reality as well as for his very successful decade as leader of Penn Medicine. President Gutmann said there was “no better capstone for . . . Penn Medicine’s most passionate advocate.”According to Collins, he came to Penn to celebrate not only the new center but Rubenstein as well, who had made “legendary contributions” to academic medicine. And at the cake-cutting after the main program, Ralph Muller, CEO of the Health System, said that he and all those involved in the TRC’s construction did their very best to make sure it was ready before Rubenstein stepped down as dean and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System. A glance back at the strategic plan that Rubenstein initiated early in his tenure – and which drew substantial input from faculty and staff – suggests that the Trans-
lational Research Center can indeed be seen as a capstone to his tenure. This passage appeared on the very first page when the draft for the Plan for Penn Medicine appeared, more than nine years ago: “To benefit from the opportunities that lie ahead, greater collaboration amongst researchers, clinicians, and educators is required. . . . This collaboration is facilitated by establishing an intellectual environment in which highly talented individuals are working together in teams to integrate a full continuum – from basic science to clinical practice to population health observations and back to basic, translational, and clinical research – to achieve remarkable results in research, patient care, and education.” The Translational Research Center is intended to be a place where Penn investigators can fulfill such aspirations.
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