The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has awarded a $24 million grant to Stanford University Medical Center. The grant, which will be distributed equally over four years, will establish the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at Stanford.
The Stanford grant follows a $24 million award in July 1999 for establishment of a Reynolds Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Both centers will help to enhance patient care by incorporating modern genetic approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerotic heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
In announcing the grant, Fred W. Smith, chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, said, "Stanford and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center form the nucleus of what we expect will become a powerful network of four to six Reynolds Centers dedicated to achieving new breakthroughs in fighting atherosclerotic heart disease."
All of the centers will focus on translating the results of scientific research into improved patient care and disease prevention. Equally important, the centers will build new collaborative links with scientists in other institutions and with each other.
Stanford's Reynolds Center will establish a unique collaboration among basic, clinical and epidemiological investigators at Stanford University Medical Center; the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.; and the Framingham (Massachusetts) Heart Study. It will enable cardiovascular specialists to use new genetic information to improve the diagnosis of coronary heart disease and the application of standard therapies. The center will also be used to encourage the development of new treatments based on improved understanding of the genetic basis of heart disease. Its interdisciplinary approach promises more rapid progress toward untangling the genetic roots of heart disease than has been possible to date, said Thomas Quertermous, MD, the William G. Irwin Professor and chief of Stanford's Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.
"The establishment of the Reynolds Center at Stanford is the result of much hard work on the part of a number of exceptional scientists at Stanford and the Kaiser Division of Research and is a tribute to the vision of the Reynolds Foundation," said Quertermous. "The overall goal of this research -- to identify the genetic basis of vascular heart disease -- is certainly worthy of this level of commitment of resources. The genetic approach proposed for the Stanford Center will take advantage of the human genome project and other current initiatives to provide the greatest hope for advanced diagnosis and treatment of individuals with heart disease."
"This award culminated a two-year competition, with applications submitted by virtually every research-intensive institution in the country," said Judy Swain, MD, the Arthur L. Bloomfield Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine. "It provides a wonderful chance to bring together world-class cardiovascular biology and medicine with the strengths in human genetics here at Stanford."
Eugene A. Bauer, MD, vice president for medical affairs and dean of Stanford's School of Medicine, praised the Foundation's generosity and foresight. "The Reynolds Foundation is truly making a difference in the understanding of cardiovascular disease. Stanford's unique environment, with its proximity to the biotechnology industry and its collaboration with Kaiser of Northern California, will leverage the contributions of the Reynolds Foundation and lead to pioneering new approaches to the prevention and treatment of heart disease."
The Reynolds Center will be co-directed by Quertermous and Mark Hlatky, MD, chair of the Department of Health Research and Policy. Other key Stanford faculty include Stephen Fortmann, MD, director of the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention, and David Cox, MD, PhD, co-director of the Stanford Human Genome Center.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is
a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late
media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las
Vegas, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United
States. SR