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As the pediatric specialists for this part of the country, Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics is continuously working with other doctors, hospitals and schools to come up with the best ways to care for the children of these communities. What helps Children's Mercy advance its capabilities and enhance its care is its cooperative work with other health care partners throughout Kansas City and the region.

Such partnerships (many formal, many others informal) make all participants stronger and help the children, too. And for those lucky enough to be working in the area of medical research, a breakthrough not only helps the children here today, but also children around the world tomorrow and for years to come.

One such large-scale partnership is particularly exciting. Several of the community's best known institutions have come together to concentrate on the area of medical research and its promise for a brighter future. The Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute has been a quiet consortium since it was formed earlier this year, but Kansas Citians will be hearing a lot about it in the months and years ahead.

The reason the leaders in medical care, education and research in the community have come together - and have been joined by the leading private charitable foundations in Kansas City - is simple: They plan to make Kansas City the "life sciences crossroads" of the world by tying together the best and brightest people from universities, hospitals and the business community.
Success for the Life Sciences Institute is based on a simple premise: together health care providers and researchers can accomplish things that alone they can not. By working together, the Kansas City community can emerge as the leader in this field and reap the benefits of the best possible medical care available. The business and academic communities will be stronger and the benefits will extend well beyond this corner of the world. Area citizens will demonstrate the caring nature of the community by dedicating ourselves to better health care and sharing discoveries for the good of all.

By "life sciences" is meant the things most students learned about in school science classes, including biology and chemistry, bioengineering and molecular medicine. In today's high technology world it also includes information science. It is the study of the world and one's relationship to it. A very important component of the life sciences is medical research from which people learn better methods of health maintenance, disease prevention and treatment of illness.

Of course, part of the real excitement is that the Life Sciences Institute will take basic scientific understanding and apply it to the real world to provide real benefits. This is known as "technology transfer." It means that this new information will be translated into new treatments, new care and new products to make contemporary lives - and the lives of future generations around the world - better.

Gatorade is perhaps one of the best-known examples of how a "technology transfer" can happen. The world's number-one selling sports drink was developed by scientists at the University of Florida looking for a way to replenish the body's nutrients lost through perspiration. Their research ultimately led to Gatorade - a product that not only refreshes millions of people, but also creates thousands of jobs and thousands of dollars in royalties for the Florida Gators!

One might be wondering how Kansas City can reach this lofty goal of being the leader in life sciences. After all, aren't there great researchers and universities and charitable foundations elsewhere? Of course there are.

But the reason Kansas City can succeed is that the city brings to the table the strength of collaboration through the Life Sciences Institute. By coming together, and working toward common goals, strengths are multiplied. The whole is greater than the sum of each of the individual parts.

Consider what happened in Indianapolis. A decade or more ago, leaders of government and private industry hatched a plan that would completely change the landscape of a metropolitan area that's about the same size as Kansas City's. Creative thinkers in Indianapolis chose to make Indianapolis the amateur sports capital of America. And by pulling together, and building the right facilities, and investing and promoting, they succeeded. Today, the capital of Indiana is the home of the NCAA and many top amateur athletic competitions. Their success is not just a coincidence.

The same thing is happening here, but in the field of life sciences rather than sports. The Life Sciences Institute brings together those institutions that are already leaders in their fields:
• Research Institutes: The Stowers Institute for Medical Research and Midwest Research Institute.
• Universities: The University of Kansas and The University of Missouri-Kansas City
• Health Care: The University of Kansas Medical Center, Children's Mercy and St. Luke's Hospital/
Shawnee Mission Health System
• Private Companies: Quintiles Transnational Corp., Bayer Corp., Aventis
• Foundations: Southwestern Bell Foundation, Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Kansas City Industrial Foundation, Hoechst Marion Roussel Foundation

As single entities, these players represent outstanding assets to the community. Working together, it is thrilling to imagine what can be accomplished. Here's one example (hypothetical) how the Life Sciences Institute could lead to real benefits in health care:
Imagine that researchers at the Stowers Institute make a breakthrough in their basic research on how cells divide and mature to become specialized tissues and organs. A collaborating clinical scientist at Children's Mercy could use that information to succeed in his lab where he is attempting to grow insulin-producing pancreatic cells that can be transplanted into patients with diabetes. In this way, they don't have to take daily insulin injections. From here, researchers at Midwest Research Institute could perform the pre-clinical studies to determine whether the transplanted cells work and are safe. If research to this point was successful, a new and novel treatment for diabetes could be patented and a private company could be established by the Life Sciences Institute to develop manufacturing methods for production of insulin-producing cells for human use. This would lead to initial clinical studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the University of Kansas and Children's Mercy to determine that these laboratory-grown cells can actually make insulin when transplanted into diabetic patients.

If all these hypothetical occurrences actually did take place, then large scale clinical research trials could be conducted at diabetes treatment centers such as St. Luke's, Research Medical Center and elsewhere throughout the country, leading ultimately to FDA approval of a new treatment that would revolutionize the treatment of diabetes for patients everywhere.
This would be a long process, five to ten years if all went well. It would take the cooperation of all the members of the Life Sciences Institute. But what benefits would result!

Society benefits with a new treatment for diabetes. Local businesses and workers benefit as the research infuses hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy and creates many jobs. Throughout the process, doctors are learning new things about diabetes and treatment that will benefit patients immediately. This is how research benefits patients today and in the future.
Other parts of the community benefit too. As local companies try to attract employees, they need to offer a strong benefits package. Top medical services are an important part of that package. And as Kansas City establishes itself as the world leader in life sciences, all businesses will be able to take advantage of that reputation and what it means in day-to-day health care.
No wonder people are excited!

It is this kind of promise that has brought the business and health care communities together. This kind of cutting edge environment is necessary to attract the best and brightest minds to area hospitals and universities and to the community. Already, Kansas City has some of the most outstanding medical programs in the region, if not the country. For example, the Clinical Pharmacology, Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery, Neonatology, Nephrology, Endocrinology and Bone Marrow Transplant programs at Children's Mercy are already known far and wide for their state-of-the-art expertise. Other participants in the Life Sciences Institute can offer similar examples.

To list the many people and institutions to credit for bringing this movement to the forefront is risky, for fear of leaving someone out. The area is blessed with a strong economy and generous people whose philanthropy helps keep local institutions strong and thriving. There are people like Jim and Virginia Stowers who have the vision and the resources to bring us the Stowers Institute and attract world-class scientists. The Kansas City Civic Council and the Kansas City Area Development Council have backed the Life Sciences Institute. The Kauffman Foundation deserves credit as well, and so does the Hall Family Foundation, which has
encouraged and supported research cooperation between KU and Children's Mercy. Fred and Dee Lyons have been strong supporters of the research program at Children's Mercy for many years.

There's Chancellor Robert Hemenway at KU, who has put research on the front burner as his institution implements its strategic plan. Also, Dean Michael Friedland at the UMKC School of Medicine is honing in on a new research vision for the school. Dr. Jim Spigarelli at the Midwest Research Institute has played a key role throughout the development of this new organization. Dick Brown, president of Health Midwest and a board member of the Stowers Institute, has played a leadership role in facilitating collaborations among the institute partners. St. Luke's has succeeded in a major fund-raising effort for research.
The list could go on and on. And news about this initiative's progress will continue to spread, as the announcement of the institute's strategic plan and funding mechanisms will be announced in the near future.

None of this would be possible without the people of this community and the spirit of cooperation that has made Kansas City one of the great cities in America. From the days that inspired Norman Rockwell's "Kansas City Spirit," area citizens have pulled together when the stakes are high. In recent years, for example, taxpayers have joined across the state line to save Union Station.

And now, area citizens are pulling together for a grander mission: to save lives.

It makes one proud to be a part of this community. Truly, Kansas City is the hometown with heart.