UW-Madison among Hartwell Foundation’s 2007 top ten biomedical research centers

For the second year in a row, the Hartwell Foundation of Memphis, Tenn., has named the University of Wisconsin–Madison as one of its Top Ten Centers of Biomedical Research.

The designation, which UW–Madison also received in 2006, gives the university the opportunity to enter the best research proposals from its faculty and staff in an open, merit-based competition for 10 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Awards. Investigators chosen by the foundation to receive awards will be provided with three years of research support at $100,000 per year.

"We are delighted to again receive this wonderful honor and support from the Hartwell Foundation. It is a tribute to the outstanding strength of our faculty and the collaborative multidisciplinary research environment at UW–Madison," says Robert N. Golden, dean of the School of Medicine and Public Health and Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs.

The goal of the Individual Biomedical Research Award competition is to fund scientists who are eager to pursue innovative, early-stage biomedical research that will benefit children, but has yet to receive support from outside funding sources. In 2006, the Hartwell Foundation selected UW School of Medicine and Public Health professors Bruce Klein and Sean Fain (also of biomedical engineering) as recipients of the award.

By participating in the competition, institutions also become eligible to receive a two-year, $100,000 Hartwell Fellowship, for which they designate a young scientist of their choice. Last year, UW–Madison chose James Holmes, a researcher in medical physics, as its Hartwell Fellow.

The Hartwell Foundation designates institutions as centers of biomedical research excellence based on their commitment to children’s health and to translational approaches – including technology transfer – that promote rapid clinical applications of research. The foundation also takes into consideration the presence of a medical school and a program in biomedical engineering, in addition to the quality and scope of ongoing research. It has determined that selection of an institution in any given year doesn’t guarantee selection in subsequent years.

The other institutions named as 2007 top ten biomedical research centers are Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, University of Michigan, University of California-San Diego, Cornell University and University of Virginia.

The Hartwell Foundation is led by a board and managed by President Frederick Dombrose.