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Stanford
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On the Cover

Cover illustration by Calef Brown.

Stanford Medicine, published quarterly by Stanford University Medical Center, aims to keep readers informed about the education, research, clinical care and other goings on at the Medical Center.

Letter

from the Dean

THESE PAST FEW MONTHS I HAVE BEEN FOCUSING MUCH OF MY ATTENTION ON ENCOURAGING THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE'S RESEARCHERS TO CROSS DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES. I believe that interdisciplinary collaborations are key to spurring advances in medical education, research and care. As I meet with faculty and administrators throughout Stanford University to set up collaborative research programs and build bridges, one thought continually returns to my mind: We are fortunate that Stanford University School of Medicine is located right here -- on the Stanford University campus.

As many of you know, the Palo Alto campus was not always the School of Medicine's location. The school was in San Francisco until just over 40 years ago when Stanford's leadership decided to move it to Palo Alto. If these individuals had not decided to move the School of Medicine in 1959, we most certainly would not see today's wealth of promising collaborations between researchers at the School of Medicine and those in Stanford's non-medical departments and schools. The ease of carrying out such interdisciplinary projects is one of Stanford's prized assets today.

School of Medicine leaders, along with our counterparts at the University, are generating ideas for programs to stimulate such cross-pollination. Some of these programs, such as Bio-X, I have described to you in previous letters. Bio-X, still in its planning stages, will coordinate faculty and students from medicine, biology, chemistry, engineering and physics to develop new approaches to explore the fundamental structures and systems of living organisms and to translate these discoveries into new approaches to understand, treat and cure disease. The program's hub will be a new 225,000-square-foot building located close to the medical campus, the School of Engineering and the School of Humanities and Sciences.

But there are many more programs in progress. One I would like to tell you about is the Stanford Center for Cardiovascular Research -- our effort to translate cardiovascular research findings into clinical practices for diagnosis and treatment. We are creating a program that brings together researchers from disciplines as diverse as communications, economics, engineering and molecular biology to take advantage of their great potential to expand the development of diagnostics, therapies and preventive strategies for cardiovascular disease. The center will focus on six areas: biomedical engineering, development of the cardiovascular system, disease prevention, genetics, outcomes research and replacement biology -- a theme that extends from the one extreme of manipulating stem cells to the other extreme of creating artificial organ systems.

All six of the center's programs will involve interdepartmental efforts within the School of Medicine, and many will involve collaborations with departments outside of the school. Two in particular -- biomedical engineering and replacement biology -- almost certainly would be impossible without our location here on campus, just a few minutes' walk from the School of Engineering.

The possibility for research and clinical advancement that inter-school collaborations hold is a big part of what makes Stanford unique. Our proximity to economists, engineers, statisticians and other non-medical specialists provides us easy access to valuable tools and perspectives many medical researchers lack. With explicitly collaborative programs such as the cardiovascular research program in place, I am optimistic that we will continue to make the most of this opportunity.

Cordially yours,

EUGENE A. BAUER, MD

Vice President, Stanford University Medical Center

Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine