| Established | 1976 |
|---|---|
| President | Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D. |
| CEO | John C. Reed, M.D., Ph.D. |
| Budget | $154 million (2010) |
| Location | La Jolla and Orlando |
| Address | 10901 North Torrey Pines Road |
| Website | www.sanfordburnham.org |
The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, previously Burnham Institute for Medical Research, is a non-profit medical research institute with locations in La Jolla, California, Orlando, Florida, and Santa Barbara, California. The more than 850 scientists at Sanford-Burnham are focused on revealing the fundamental molecular causes of various diseases, with research including topics such as cancer, neuroscience, stem cell research, diabetes and obesity.
Research at Sanford-Burnham is supported by funding from National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation among others, and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development.[1] In 2008, Sanford-Burnham was awarded a $97.9 million grant by NIH to establish a high-throughput screening screening center.[2]
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William H. Fishman, M.D., Ph.D., and his wife Lillian Fishman founded the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation in 1976 after retiring from Tufts University School of Medicine. The Foundation focused on oncodevelopment, the study of developmental biology in conjunction with oncology as a means to better understand cancer.
In 1996, the Foundation was renamed the Burnham Institute for Medical Research for businessman Malin Burnham, after he joined with an anonymous donor to give $10 million. In 2007, T. Denny Sanford gave the Institute $20 million through Sanford Health, a hospital which received significant donations from T. Denny Sanford previously, allowing it to create the Sanford Children's Health Research Center, which has sites in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and La Jolla, CA, the latter within the campus of Sanford-Burnham. In 2010, the Institute adopted its current name following a $50 million pledge of support from Sanford. [3]
Sanford-Burnham was founded with its primary focus on cancer research. The institute employees more than 1,000 people, of which over 850 are scientists. The scientists who work at Sanford-Burnham include biologists, chemists, biophysicists, engineers, and computer scientists. Sanford-Burnham ranks consistently among the world's top 25 organizations for its research impact, according to Thomson Scientific data. It also ranks among the top four research institutes in the United States in National Institutes of Health grant funding.
The institute now conducts a broad array of medical research activities and is home to five research centers:
Sanford-Burnham is one of four institutes that have joined together to carry out stem cell research in a partnership renamed for T. Denny Sanford after he donated $30 million to the effort in 2008. The Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in December 2009 broke ground on a $126 million research facility following more than a year of financing delays wrought by California's budget problems.
In 2006, Sanford-Burnham opened a Santa Barbara location in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara, under the direction of Dr. Erkki Ruoslahti. In 2009, this collaboration was expanded with the establishment of the Center for Nanomedicine, directed by Dr. Jamey Marth. The Center combines UCSB's expertise in engineering with Sanford-Burnham's biomedical research to focus on creating biological devices on the atomic and molecular scale. Examples of this type of research include the creation of medicine-containing nanoparticles that can home in on and release medicine inside of a tumor. [4]
Sanford-Burnham recently expanded operations to Lake Nona in Orlando, Florida. The Lake Nona campus is home to the Diabetes and Obesity Research Center, and also includes state-of-the-art high-throughput screening, analytical genomics, metabolomics, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and imaging facilities. These resources are designed to facilitate inter-disciplinary research, drug discovery and translational research relevant to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Sanford-Burnham at Lake Nona is located in “Medical City”- a 600-acre (2.4 km2) health & life science cluster of bio-medical research, education and healthcare institutions. Sanford-Burnham is a cornerstone in the emerging medical city, which includes Nemours Children’s Hospital, a Veterans Affairs Medical Center, UCF College of Medicine & Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, M.D. Anderson Orlando Cancer Research Institute, and the University of Florida Research & Academic Center.
John C. Reed had this to say about the Institute's experiences with the state: "We have been warmly welcomed and encouraged to launch operations in Florida by everyone we have encountered at University of Florida, University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and other academic organizations. In fact, the willingness of these universities to partner with Burnham, including sharing expenses associated with recruiting talented scientists and establishing adjunct faculty positions for them, has played a huge role in our decision to establish a new site of operations in Florida."[5]
The Institute's partners and collaborators include the City of Orlando, Orange County, the State of Florida, the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, the Tavistock Group, Lake Nona, the University of Florida, the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission, Florida's Blood Centers, Florida Hospital, Orlando Regional Healthcare, Orlando VA Medical Center, Nemours, Epcot Center, and the Orlando Magic.[6]
The award-winning architectural design is by Perkins+Will, with mechanical engineering by Affiliated Engineers, and building commissioning by SEQUIL Systems, Inc.
Sanford-Burnham scientists routinely collaborate across disciplines and campuses. For example, Sanford-Burnham’s high-throughput screening center, the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, has robotics at both the La Jolla and Lake Nona campuses.
In addition, Sanford-Burnham has strong working relationships with a number of other organizations, including the University of California, San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Duke University's Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center.
Sanford-Burnham also collaborates with pharmaceutical companies to move research breakthroughs from the lab out to the public. Recent agreements include partners such as Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development and Magellan Biosciences.
Sanford-Burnham offers postdoctoral training for scientists who have completed their Ph.D. There are typically around 250 postdocs training at Sanford-Burnham at any time.
Established in 2006, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Sanford-Burnham offers a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Medicine or Integrated Biosciences. The Graduate School trains students for careers in basic and translational research through a curriculum of focused, multi-disciplinary instruction. Sanford-Burnham is currently seeking accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Sanford-Burnham also offers a joint graduate program with the University of California, San Diego in Molecular Pathology. [7]
The endowment was recorded at as low as $15.2 million, a 13 percent drop from nearly $17.5 million in February 2008, due largely to losses on investments. Its endowment stood at $22.5 million as of Dec. 31, 2009. [8]