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$5.4 million grant creates new urologic center

(L-R) Rosalyn Adam, PhD, Michael Freeman, PhD, Keith Solomon, PhD, Marsha Moses, PhD, and Tucker Collins, MD, PhD

hildren's researchers have successfully completed a rigorous national competition sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the George M. O'Brien Center for Urologic Research. The O'Brien competition resulted in a $5.4 million award spread over five years.

The new Children's Hospital Boston/Harvard Urological Diseases Research Center will be based here, with participation by Wake Forest Medical Center and the University of Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. Molecular biologist Michael Freeman, PhD, director of Urologic Research, will serve as director of the center.

The other Children's principal investigators that will lead projects in the Center include Marsha Moses, PhD, associate in Surgical Research; Tucker Collins, MD, PhD, chief of Pathology, Rosalyn Adam, PhD, associate director of Urology Research, and Keith Solomon, PhD, research associate in Orthopaedic Surgery. Former Children's urologist Anthony Atala, MD (who will be leaving Children's on Dec. 30 for Wake Forest University) and Darius Bagli, MD, a researcher at the University of Toronto, will also lead projects in the center.

The work of these researchers will provide a new understanding of genitourinary tract tissues, which have been poorly studied in comparison to other organ systems like the brain and heart. The absence of fundamental knowledge severely limits the development of new and innovative therapies for a variety of common illnesses, including incontinence, chronic pelvic pain and congenital defects affecting the urologic tissues.

¿The O'Brien Center should allow us to use new tools to better understand and attack urologic diseases not related to cancer," Freeman says. In addition, a group led by Moses will study novel mechanisms of fighting genitourinary cancers. And in another exciting O'Brien initiative, Freeman says, ¿Dr. Solomon will lead the creation of new proteomics capabilities at Children's. This kind of analysis, where proteins can be studied on a large, unprecedented scale, really represents the future of basic and translational biomedical research."

The long-range objective of the center will be to integrate knowledge in basic cell biology, regenerative medicine, biochemistry, molecular biology, proteomics and genomics into a collaboration that has not existed before. Freeman points out that the O'Brien Center will offer a unique opportunity to foster new relationships between the Urology, Vascular Biology, Pathology and Orthopaedic research programs.

Notably, this is the first time the NIH has ever awarded such a center grant to a pediatric institution.—CM