Campus research hits budget jackpot

RALEIGH -- North Carolina has long been generous in its financial support of universities, and this year is no different. But another thing stands out in the new state budget approved by the legislature: big bucks for research.

The centerpiece is a cancer research fund at UNC-Chapel Hill -- $25 million in the coming year, growing to $50 million a year starting in 2009. UNC leaders call it a spectacular gift that will catapult the school to the nation's top public cancer research center.

But that's not all. The budget includes money for the new research campus in Kannapolis, bioenergy and bioengineering at N.C. State University, a new joint program in nanotechnology at N.C. A&T State and UNC-Greensboro and biomanufacturing at N.C. Central University. The UNC system will get its first ever "competitiveness fund," with $3 million to jump-start work in emerging scientific fields at the state campuses.

Even a private university got in on the action. In a highly unusual move, the legislature will spend $12 million during the next two years on regenerative medicine at Wake Forest University, where researchers are developing techniques to treat soldiers' battlefield wounds and reconstruct tissues and limbs.

All told, the state will spend more than $120 million on research during the next two years, not including money for science buildings.

Economic development

The new money isn't coming because state leaders have a new appreciation for lab rats and petri dishes. It is as much about economic development as anything. Huge losses in manufacturing jobs have led leaders to reinvent the North Carolina economy. Part of the plan is pouring money toward the creation of university centers in fields such as biotechnology, genomics, nutrition, gerontology, biofuels and nanotechnology.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," said state Sen. Walter Dalton, a Democrat from Rutherfordton, as he stood with UNC leaders Wednesday to tout the cancer research fund.

"I think you will see that money spread across our campuses to do research to help build this new economy," Dalton said. "None is brighter than this one because not only will it help build the economy, it's going to save lives."

The General Assembly, hit with several legislators' deaths from cancer in recent years, was drawn to the project, which will be paid for partly by a tobacco tax and the state's tobacco trust fund.

UNC officials said the state has 41,000 new cancer cases and 17,000 cancer deaths annually. The fund will be used to attract top scientists, surround them with good research teams and provide them with sophisticated equipment.

"We have been talking with the legislature for a year or two about the need for us to up our game in this state if we're going to compete with other research programs around the country," said Dr. William L. Roper, dean of the UNC medical school and CEO of the UNC Health Care System.

Some predict that UNC might someday be mentioned in the same breath with such well-known cancer centers as Johns Hopkins University, the Mayo Clinic and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"There's nothing else like this," said Dr. Shelley Earp, director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. "It's in essence a $1 billion endowment this state has provided for this institution."

Other states invest

Other states are raising the ante, too. Earlier this year, Iowa created a $100 million Power Fund to invest in research on new energy sources. Two years ago, Texas created a $200 million Emerging Technology Fund. Michigan has a 21st Century Jobs Fund that will put hundreds of millions of dollars into four areas: life sciences, alternative energy, advanced automotive technology and homeland security.