September 27, 2004
Next: Aggressive science | Joseph Verdi Principal investigator, Center for Regenerative Medicine at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, Scarborough
By Taylor Smith
When Maine Medical Center in 2002 was ranked as one of the top 16 major teaching hospitals in the country by Evanston, Ill.-based health care industry tracker Solucient, Joseph Verdi kept waiting for a parade to clang down Congress Street in Portland. After all, seeing MMC placed in the same stratosphere as nationally recognized health care facilities like the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic was pretty heady stuff, says Verdi, a 43-year-old career stem-cell biologist who in 2002 joined MMC's burgeoning research arm, the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough.
But instead of a parade, the accolades for MMC generated relative silence ˆ the same silence that has greeted Verdi's work at the MMCRI Center for Regenerative Medicine, a research center he established in 2003 through a prestigious five-year, $11.2 million Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant from the Bethesda, Md.-based National Institutes of Health. But with skyrocketing health care costs increasingly drawing the attention of business owners and the general public, the work of researchers such as Verdi should be of great interest: To put it simply, the work at MMCRI makes health care more efficient.
Though the lack of recognition can be frustrating at times ˆ "We're the best kept secret in the entire state," he gripes ˆ Verdi admits there are benefits to flying under the radar. For one, he says MMCRI has avoided much of the cutthroat, competitive culture that often plagues larger, high-profile research institutes. Instead, collaboration trumps competition, and Verdi relishes his role as a mentor and educator. "That's not a typical attitude in the scientific community," he says. "But it's the next generation [of researchers] who are going to be the ones who cure diabetes and Parkinson's disease. I feel adamant about teaching them to think out of the box and to throw the doors open."
That collaborative environment, says Verdi, has allowed him and his colleagues to push the envelope in terms of the projects they tackle and the scope of the work that's being done at MMCRI. The NIH grant that paved the way for the Center for Regenerative Medicine was the result of a very aggressive, forward-looking application that laid out Verdi's vision of bringing the newest technology and newest research in stem-cell biology to MMCRI. Though the move was risky at the time, Verdi says he wouldn't have it any other way. ("If it's not the best in the world, don't bother doing it," he says.)
The work that Verdi and his team are tackling in the Center for Regenerative Medicine certainly has a futuristic ring to it: harnessing stem cells in adult kidneys to allow the organ to repair itself, for example, or isolating mammary stem cells to find more effective ways of treating breast cancer. "This [science] is the wave of the future," says Verdi. "It's not today and it's not five years from now, but it's the future, and we'll be in front of the wave swimming as fast as we can."
In addition to longer-term, high-profile results, the work of Verdi's group ˆ and the other centers at MMCRI ˆ already has affected health care in Maine and beyond. Ditto for collaborations between MMCRI and research institutes from Maine to California. "For every trivial advance we make, we're cutting five or 10 cents off each hospital visit," says Verdi. "The fact that outpatient surgeries and emergency room visits [in Maine] are far more efficient has a lot to do with the clinical trials and clinical science that's going on under the umbrella of the research center."
The result, says Verdi, is that MMCRI is becoming known in scientific circles as a world-class facility. Whereas it was difficult recruiting high-level candidates just two years ago, Verdi these days is fielding phone calls from scientists asking about openings at MMCRI and the Center for Regenerative Medicine. He plans to expand his staff in the next few years by recruiting five more investigators, and expects that growth to build on itself by bringing in more research dollars and notoriety for the center. "We're not here just to be here," says Verdi. "We're here to be great."
But instead of a parade, the accolades for MMC generated relative silence ˆ the same silence that has greeted Verdi's work at the MMCRI Center for Regenerative Medicine, a research center he established in 2003 through a prestigious five-year, $11.2 million Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant from the Bethesda, Md.-based National Institutes of Health. But with skyrocketing health care costs increasingly drawing the attention of business owners and the general public, the work of researchers such as Verdi should be of great interest: To put it simply, the work at MMCRI makes health care more efficient.
Though the lack of recognition can be frustrating at times ˆ "We're the best kept secret in the entire state," he gripes ˆ Verdi admits there are benefits to flying under the radar. For one, he says MMCRI has avoided much of the cutthroat, competitive culture that often plagues larger, high-profile research institutes. Instead, collaboration trumps competition, and Verdi relishes his role as a mentor and educator. "That's not a typical attitude in the scientific community," he says. "But it's the next generation [of researchers] who are going to be the ones who cure diabetes and Parkinson's disease. I feel adamant about teaching them to think out of the box and to throw the doors open."
That collaborative environment, says Verdi, has allowed him and his colleagues to push the envelope in terms of the projects they tackle and the scope of the work that's being done at MMCRI. The NIH grant that paved the way for the Center for Regenerative Medicine was the result of a very aggressive, forward-looking application that laid out Verdi's vision of bringing the newest technology and newest research in stem-cell biology to MMCRI. Though the move was risky at the time, Verdi says he wouldn't have it any other way. ("If it's not the best in the world, don't bother doing it," he says.)
The work that Verdi and his team are tackling in the Center for Regenerative Medicine certainly has a futuristic ring to it: harnessing stem cells in adult kidneys to allow the organ to repair itself, for example, or isolating mammary stem cells to find more effective ways of treating breast cancer. "This [science] is the wave of the future," says Verdi. "It's not today and it's not five years from now, but it's the future, and we'll be in front of the wave swimming as fast as we can."
In addition to longer-term, high-profile results, the work of Verdi's group ˆ and the other centers at MMCRI ˆ already has affected health care in Maine and beyond. Ditto for collaborations between MMCRI and research institutes from Maine to California. "For every trivial advance we make, we're cutting five or 10 cents off each hospital visit," says Verdi. "The fact that outpatient surgeries and emergency room visits [in Maine] are far more efficient has a lot to do with the clinical trials and clinical science that's going on under the umbrella of the research center."
The result, says Verdi, is that MMCRI is becoming known in scientific circles as a world-class facility. Whereas it was difficult recruiting high-level candidates just two years ago, Verdi these days is fielding phone calls from scientists asking about openings at MMCRI and the Center for Regenerative Medicine. He plans to expand his staff in the next few years by recruiting five more investigators, and expects that growth to build on itself by bringing in more research dollars and notoriety for the center. "We're not here just to be here," says Verdi. "We're here to be great."
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