Outline Boilerplate: University Overview

University Overview

Overview of MUSC (rev. date 10/07)

Founded in 1824 as the first school of medicine in the southeastern U.S., Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is now the core of the state’s largest medical complex and the largest employer in the metropolitan Charleston area with about 10,000 employees. A freestanding academic health center, MUSC is the only tertiary/quaternary care referral center in South Carolina for a statewide population of about 4.3 million people.

MUSC is a state-assisted institution. The South Carolina General Assembly and Governor appoint the Board of Trustees, who in turn select the President The Vice President for Academic Affairs serves as Provost and Chief Academic Officer. The Dean of the College of Medicine serves as Vice President for Medical Affairs. The Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Center serves as Vice President for Clinical Operations. These dual appointments ensure that strategic planning, implementation, and oversight are closely and continuously coordinated to provide excellent education, research and patient care in a first-rate academic health center. Although MUSC is a public institution, it receives less than 8% of its total annual budget from the State of South Carolina. The remainder is generated through tuition, patient care fees, federal grants and contracts, and private contributions.

The university has been at its present site on the Charleston peninsula since 1913, currently occupying 76 acres and 88 buildings. Major construction and renovation in the past decade include the Thurmond Biomedical Research Facility and Gazes Cardiac Research Institute (1997), a 3-story addition to the Storm Eye Center (1998), the 10-story Rutledge Tower ambulatory care and ambulatory surgery complex (1998), the 122,000 ft² Darby Children's Research Institute (2004), expansion of the Hollings Cancer Center (2006), and Phase 1 of a long-term initiative to build an entirely new comprehensive teaching and referral hospital on the west side of campus (2007). Planned facilities include a Drug Discovery Building (120,000 ft² with construction to start in late 2007) and an adjoining Bioengineering Building of similar size, focusing on translational research programs to generate molecular targets, lead compounds, tissue engineering constructs, novel devices and genomic technologies. Also in planning is a Patient-Oriented Research Tower that will provide a home for MUSC's Clinical and Translational Research Program and the Center for Health Disparities Research, as well patient-oriented research clinics, bioethics and subject advocacy programs, medical imaging, biostatistics, epidemiology and bioinformatics programs, data banks, tissue banks, health economists and health services researchers.

The major organizational components are the MUSC Medical Center and six colleges: Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, and Dental Medicine. The Medical University of South Carolina is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award bachelor, master, doctoral and professional degrees. (Questions about the academic accreditation of MUSC may be addressed to the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4907, or 404-679-4500). Additional accreditations are provided by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and numerous national, professional and specialized accrediting bodies. The teaching faculty on campus consists of about 1,200 full-time and 200 part-time members. MUSC offers professional education at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels appropriate to the health care disciplines, awarding about 700 degrees annually with enrollment of more than 2,400 degree-seeking students. In addition, the university coordinates the training of approximately 80 interns, 400 medical/surgical residents and 100 specialty fellows in ACGME-approved programs plus 23 dental residents and 22 pharmacy residents.

MUSC leads the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC), linking the academic health sciences center in Charleston to community-based health care centers statewide with an emphasis on health disparities, rural health issues and access to health care. In 2006 South Carolina AHEC received the prestigious Eugene S. Mayer Award, which is presented every two years to the best model statewide AHEC system in the nation. MUSC has also received national recognition from the Association of American Medical Colleges and other professional associations for outstanding community service and leadership in innovative health services delivery, outreach, and emergency preparedness.

MUSC is the lead biomedical research institution in Health Sciences South Carolina, a statewide consortium to facilitate efficiency and speed in developing, testing and bringing health interventions and therapies to widespread use. Through HSSC, the state’s three research universities and four largest healthcare systems have created a truly statewide integration of scientists, clinicians and data systems. HSSC has active working groups on science, clinical care, information technology and inter-operability, a statewide IRB, and Center for Clinical Safety and Effectiveness that develops and uses state-of-the-art patient simulation technologies. In August 2006, the Duke Endowment announced a three-year, $21 million award to HSSC to help bring about transformational changes in health sciences/services research. This represents the largest single award ever made by the Duke Endowment. As the leading research institution in this innovative collaboration, MUSC is ideally situated to develop additional statewide research networks to conduct translational studies and disseminate findings. Statewide collaborations and the relatively small size of the state enable MUSC investigators to rapidly accrue patients in therapeutic, effectiveness and outcomes trials.

Research at MUSC (rev. date 9/07)
MUSC encourages research by providing facilities, funds and enthusiastic administrative support. In FY2007 MUSC faculty received 1,063 extramural awards totaling $193.4 million. Federal funding constitutes about 74% of extramural support, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as the primary funding agency (~$93.4 million in total awards received in FY2007, an 11% increase of FY2006). The Chronicle of Higher Education ranked MUSC 10th among all institutions receiving NIH support in terms of rate of increase in NIH awards (Feb. 6, 2004). MUSC is the only institution in South Carolina listed by the National Science Foundation in the top 100 universities and colleges in the nation in terms of federal research and development expenditures [NSF Division of Science Resources and Statistics, Federal S&E Support to Universities, Colleges and NPOs: FY2003, published June 13, 2006.] NIH data over the past 10 years show that the MUSC College of Medicine has advanced in rankings of U.S. medical schools from 63rd (of 124) in FY1996 to 52nd (of 123) in FY2005, with 7 departments in the top 25 in the nation and top 10 in the South [NIH Office of Extramural Research, Award Data, data released Sept. 1, 2006]. Also based on NIH data, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) ranks MUSC’s College of Medicine 8th of 34 free-standing public and private academic health centers in the nation.

Endowed research professorships are supported by a statewide initiative launched by the South Carolina General Assembly in 2002 with passage of the South Carolina Research Centers of Economic Excellence Act (COEE). This legislation identified $200 million in state funds to be provided over 7 years, matched dollar-for-dollar with non-state funds, specifically to recruit new research expertise to the three state universities. To date, this has resulted in initiating 14 COEE research professorships at MUSC, bringing the total of all endowed chairs and named professorships to 68. In addition to the obvious benefit of providing substantial resources to recruit senior research leadership and entrepreneurship, the program has dramatically raised the profile of university-based research in South Carolina – especially biomedical and clinical/translational research – and stimulated significant philanthropy to meet match requirements. In FY2006 MUSC saw a 33% increase in private gifts and pledges to a level of $64 million.

Research Training (rev. date 1/07)

MUSC emphasizes research career development at all levels, from pre-baccalaureate to junior faculty. The institution ranks in the top quartile of domestic educational institutions in terms of number of NIH grants for research training. To support undergraduate students who come from other institutions for research training on the MUSC campus, MUSC has obtained competitive grants from several NIH institutes and centers (e.g., NIGMS, NHLBI, NCMHD) and other federal sponsors (e.g., NSF and NASA. Additional NIH grants from NIDDK, NHLBI and NIDCR support summer research opportunities for medical, dental, and other health professional students at MUSC. An NIH Roadmap Research Grant (T32 HD052274) offers health professional students the opportunity to pursue an MS or PhD degree in Clinical and Translational Research. Numerous other NIH institutional training awards (T32s) annually support approximately 40 predoctoral and 40 postdoctoral training slots in areas such as addictions and substance abuse, bioinformatics, biostatistics, cancer, cardiovascular disease, environmental stress signaling, health services research, kidney disease, inflammatory and fibrosing diseases, substance abuse, and aging. Support for graduate (PhD) students includes NIGMS awards for diversity (R25 GM072643) and dual degree (MD/PhD) pathways (T32 GM008716), an NIDCR grant for comprehensive research training in oral and craniofacial health (T32 DE017551), and two U.S. Department of Education Graduate Assistantship in Areas of National Need (GAANN) programs. MUSC offers clinically trained postgraduates a Master of Science in Clinical Research (initiated with a K30 Curriculum Award). FY2007 enrollment includes 171 PhD students, 50 MD/PhD students, 6 DMD/PhD students, 1 PharmD/PhD student, 26 Nursing PhD students, 16 MS students, and 36 junior faculty and advanced trainees in the Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR) curriculum. More than 225 postdoctoral research fellows are working in laboratories within basic science and clinical departments. These research trainees are supported by research grants and competitive fellowships (e.g., F and K awards from NIH) as well as the institutional training grants mentioned above. In addition, at least 9 NIH center grants at MUSC (P awards) include support for postdoctoral and/or junior faculty research training and career development components.

Research Development and Administration (rev. date 5/07)
The MUSC research infrastructure includes pre- and post-award functions reporting to the Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost through the Associate Provost for Research. The Office of Research Development focuses on program and proposal development, identifies funding opportunities, develops proposal concepts, networks faculty members with complementary interests, provides grant-writing consultation and workshops, offers pre-submission critiques, compiles institutional data, and prepares competitive proposals for research resources and research training. The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) hhandles certifications and assurances, ensures that policies and procedures are followed, helps prepare budgets, negotiates terms and conditions, maintains proposal and awards data, administers the program of intramural research grants, and oversees re-budgeting and close-out activities. ORSP is the institutional interface with Grants.gov and coordinates all aspects of electronic research administration. The Office of Research Integrityprovides oversight and staffing for activities focused on compliance with regulations for research involving humans, vertebrate animals, and biohazardous agents. It also coordinates management of conflict of interest, financial disclosure, and scientific integrity issues.

Foundation for Research Development (rev. date 11/06)
The MUSC Foundation for Research Development (FRD) is an affiliated, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation, established in 1995 to manage technology transfer and private sector research relationships for MUSC. MUSC investigators present approximately 50 new invention disclosures per year. On behalf of MUSC and its investigators, FRD has filed 173 US patent applications that cover new subject matter, and received 58 US patents since FY 1998. In addition, FRD has negotiated 10 options, 20 exclusive license agreements, and 12 non-exclusive license agreements. FRD has been involved with 13 start-up companies utilizing MUSC intellectual property; one had a successful initial public offering (IPO) in mid-2005. These accomplishments illustrate the quality and practical relevance of MUSC expertise and research findings, setting the pace for future progress.