To the Editor:
I would like to commend state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Sen. Donald Norcross for championing legislation that protects Rutgers University’s Camden campus, while creating new opportunities to grow research in South Jersey.
Through separate boards and funding streams for Rutgers–Camden and Rowan University, and a joint board to develop inter-institutional programs in health sciences, this arrangement would efficiently promote the enormous potential for joint research in life sciences.
For example, discussions already underway between basic scientists and engineers at the two institutions indicate that formation of a Life Science and Biomedical Research Institute (LSBRI) in Camden would be an exciting initial project. It could bring together researchers and doctoral students from the Rutgers–Camden Center for Computational and Integrative Biology (CCIB) with engineers and other scientists from Rowan, and clinicians from Cooper Hospital in a single building in close proximity to researchers at the Coriell Institute.
An institute like LSBRI would create a collaborative hub for research in Camden, from basic science, to more applied biomedical engineering, to translational medicine — bringing the findings of the basic science investigations directly to the patients’ bedside. This legislation has set the stage for such opportunities.
Prof. Joseph Martin
Center for Computational
and Integrative Biology