This is the first in a four-part series about the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.
The Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy will sport a new logo this year. It was designed to resemble a bridge between academia and society, between the Medical Center and the main campus and between science and policy, all built on a double helix. And with the philosophy behind this new design, IGSP plans to continue to lead the way in the Genome Revolution.
“We really wanted a new look to be representative of the whole of the IGSP, mapped to the new vision, building on a new strategy,” Director Huntington Willard said.
As the global scientific community embraced the progress of the legendary Human Genome Project, Duke realized the inevitability of immersing itself in the Genome Revolution. With the creation of IGSP in 2000, the University became a key intellectual component in facing the genomic challenges that lay ahead.
The goal of IGSP is to advance the genome sciences for developing a greater understanding of health and biology, as well as to take into account the myriad ethical, legal and policy issues that arise from genomic studies. The institute serves to build bridges among researchers, clinicians, policy makers, business leaders and the general public and to respond to the broad concerns raised by society.
Designed as a closely-knit cluster of highly interdependent research units, IGSP currently consists of six centers—the Center for Genomic Medicine, the Center for Genome Ethics, Law and Policy, the Center for Applied Genomics and Technology, the Center for Models of Human Disease, the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and the Center for Public Genomics.
The Center for Models of Human Disease will undergo reconfiguration this fall and focus on supporting and expanding the creative use of animal models on campus.
Furthermore, the IGSP team is actively considering the addition of two more centers this fall that reflect the strengths and opportunities available at Duke in the areas of genome sciences and policy.
“The great moment for the IGSP was in realizing that we could best use our resources to plan a new course, with highly integrated and interdependent centers of research and scholarship, each of which reaches out across campus in its own way,” Willard said. “That insight led to the strategic plan that we are just beginning to implement. These new faculty, the opening of [the Center for Integrated Medicine, Engineering and Applied Sciences] and the definition of new IGSP centers mark our true beginning.”
IGSP is created to reflect what is known as the “Big D,” or Duke as a whole, not a collection of “little d’s,” each striving for its own “glory and survival,” said Willard, who took the helm of the institute in 2003. The revolutionary “Big D” model makes IGSP distinct from other institutions throughout the country because it incorporates numerous schools, departments and disciplines in a broad and comprehensive approach to genomic science and its related fields, he added.
“The centers have their own strengths and cores, but overlap maximally in their mandates,” Willard said. “It is impossible to conceive of one achieving its mission without the input and active collaboration of the others.”
IGSP is one of the new initiatives set forth in the strategic plan “Building on Excellence,” adopted by the University in 2001 to characterize the direction of Duke’s future.
“IGSP is central to the University’s mission in terms of service to society, education, learning and research, and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs,” said Provost Peter Lange, who was instrumental in the development of IGSP and the appointment of Willard as director. “The Genomics Revolution has a widespread impact on academic programs and IGSP is leading these new knowledge frontiers.”
Although Lange said he believes genomics and the level of hard science research should be the norm for all universities of Duke’s caliber, IGSP has two unique qualities that set it apart from its peer institutions—the broad interdisciplinary component and the translational character of genomics that plays to Duke’s particular ability to use raw medical data from Duke University Medical Center to improve health and health care.
“Others have been flashier in the short-term and others certainly had a head start on making major contributions to the earlier mapping and sequencing phase of the genome project,” Willard said. “But the IGSP is a structure that perhaps could only work at Duke and is being built for the long-term. The Genome Revolution is here to stay, and so is the IGSP.”
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