Wistar Institute

The Wistar Institute
Established 1892
President and CEO Dario C. Altieri, M.D.[1]
Faculty 109[1]
Staff 325[1]
Budget $63,250,000 (2015)[1]
Location University City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Address 3601 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Website The Wistar Institute

The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical science, with special expertise in oncology, immunology, infectious disease and vaccine research. Located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Wistar was founded in 1892 as America's first nonprofit institution solely focused on biomedical research and training, The Institute works to ensure that research advances from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible.

Since 1972, Wistar has been a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center and holds the NCI's highest rating of "Exceptional" from approximately 1,500 cancer centers across the United States.

Known worldwide for vaccine development, some of the Institute's accomplishments are its contributions to the creation of vaccines for rubella (German Measles), rotavirus and rabies.

Research

Cancer

The Wistar Institute Cancer Center's pioneering work spans from studying genetics and the molecular and cellular events underlying how cancer develops, to the role of the microenvironment surrounding the tumor in how cancer spreads (metastasis), with the aim of making discoveries that could someday translate into advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Wistar maintains one of the largest U.S. labs outside of the NIH.

Cancer Center accomplishments

Immunology and vaccine development

A global leader in vaccine development, the Wistar Institute's half-century of achievement in vaccine development has saved countless lives in the U.S. and abroad. Discoveries at Wistar have led to the creation of vaccines that protect children and adults from widespread, debilitating, and life-threatening diseases.


Education and training

Educating and training the next generation of scientists are central to The Wistar Institute's mission.

History

Isaac J. Wistar, 1852, San Francisco, California

The Wistar Institute is the nation's first independent medical research facility, founded in 1892 by Caspar Wistar, a prominent Philadelphia physician.

Born in 1761, Wistar was chair of the anatomy department at the University of Pennsylvania. He wrote and published System of Anatomy, the first American textbook on anatomy.

To augment his medical lectures and illustrate comparative anatomy, Wistar began collecting dried, wax-injected, and preserved human specimens. Two years before his death in 1818, he gave the collection to William Edmonds Horner, another physician. Horner expanded the collection, which became known as the Wistar and Horner Museum, and was further expanded by its next curator, Joseph Leidy, M.D., who added animal specimens and fossil and anthropological samples. By the late 1880s, the collection was beginning to show signs of neglect and wear, compounded by a fire in Logan Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, where the museum was housed.

The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, c. 1900–1910

Wistar's great-nephew Colonel Isaac Jones Wistar became involved in a fundraising campaign to refurbish and re-house the collection. Determined to preserve his great-uncle's teaching collection and support new and original research of anatomy and biology, Isaac Jones Wistar funded an endowment and research building for The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology. Designed by Philadelphia architects George W. and William G. Hewitt, the original building is still part of the Wistar Institute's research facility, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the historic University City area in Philadelphia.

Today, part of the human and animal skeletal collection is housed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

A Wistar rat

In 1906, under Milton Greenman, M.D., and Henry Donaldson, Ph.D., the Institute developed and bred the Wistar rat, the first standardized laboratory animal. It is estimated that more than half of all laboratory rats today are descendants of the original Wistar rat line.[3][4]

Notable members

Current members

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Official website of the Wistar Institute". The Wistar Institute. Retrieved 3 July 2009.
  2. ↑ "Rubella vaccines for the former USSR". Chemistry World News. The Royal Society of Chemistry. 17 January 2006. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ "The Wistar Institute:History". The Wistar Institute. 2007. Retrieved 2008-11-09.

Coordinates: 39°57′03″N 75°11′44″W / 39.95093°N 75.19549°W / 39.95093; -75.19549

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