Briefs

• Construction begins on DeBakey Library and Museum
• NIBIB awards first Quantum Grant to Baylor College of Medicine

Construction begins on DeBakey Library and Museum

Baylor College of Medicine recently honored Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., during a groundbreaking event for the Michael E. DeBakey Library and Museum.

The library and museum, which will be located on the BCM campus, will chronicle the career of the pioneering heart surgeon who put the college on the road to leadership in its missions of education, research, patient care and community service.

DeBakey, 98, served as Baylor College of Medicine's first president and chancellor. He currently serves as chancellor emeritus. He was chair of surgery from 1948 until 1993.

Completion of the 65,000 square foot library and museum is expected in September 2007.

NIBIB awards first Quantum Grant to Baylor College of Medicine

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health has selected Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University researchers as the only recipients of the first Quantum Grant, part of the Quantum Grants Program developed to make a profound or "quantum level" advance in health care by funding research on targeted projects that will develop new technologies and modalities for the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of disease.

Karen Hirschi, Ph.D., deputy director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center within the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, is the principal investigator on the three-year, $2.9 million grant. The project, co-developed by Mary Dickinson, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, will study ways to engineer neuro-vascular regenerative units in a laboratory environment. They could then be implanted into the damaged cortex of stroke patients to provide a source of neural and vascular cells that will continue to develop and differentiate and, hopefully, lead to the repair of stroke-injured tissue.