Meinig builds a bridge between Ithaca, NYC Cornell campuses

A conference held last month on Cornell's Ithaca campus brought faculty from the Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College New York City campuses together, re-energizing efforts to collaborate on projects and research. The availability of new seed grant funds to promote cross-campus efforts also was announced, prompting excitement and much interest.

The conference, held Sept. 18-19 and hosted by Peter Meinig, chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees, included 21 Weill Cornell faculty and 38 members of the Ithaca campus faculty. The conference, which Cornell trustee Marcus Loo initially proposed, was arranged as a series of six mini-conferences on various topics -- biophysics/structural biology/imaging; bioinformatics/computational biology; proteomics/functional genomics; biomedical engineering; nanobiotechnology; and pathobiology/immunology.

Faculty members from the two campuses discussed their current research programs in the six areas and explored ways to collaborate. They then toured some of the research facilities on Cornell's Ithaca campus that are available to faculty from both campuses. At a wrap-up meeting Sept. 19, the participants discussed the fruits of the conference and plans for future meetings.

Evaluations of the conference, which included suggestions to facilitate even greater cooperative efforts and research between the campuses, were collected and will be made available to a new vice provost for medical affairs, who will replace Lisa Staiano-Coico (now the dean of the College of Human Ecology).

Special thanks were offered to Meinig, who is making seed grant funds available to faculty who pursue collaborative ventures, including joint grant proposals. A formal announcement about procedures for applying for these seed grants will be made in the next few weeks. The provosts' offices on both campuses will match Meinig's gift in support of these cross-campus projects.

Faculty from both campuses said the conference was stimulating and left them hungry for more interaction. "There are clearly opportunities for collaborations, and for important new initiatives, and I think that the faculty here will work towards that goal," said Barbara Hempstead, professor of medicine at Weill Cornell.

Fred Maxfield, chairman and professor of biochemistry at Weill Cornell, also thought the conference was a success. "One of the attractions for me in taking a position at the medical college nine years ago was a chance to forge links (and build on old links) with Cornell-Ithaca," he said.

A second conference will be hosted by Weill Cornell at the New York City campus in early 2005, and plans are also underway for additional in-depth mini-conferences on the topics addressed at the September discussions. The ongoing expansion of life science research facilities on both campuses will further increase the opportunities for new collaborations and joint programs, bringing together Cornell's brightest innovators and creative scientists.