Dr. Ray Woosley wants people to talk about genomics around their dinner tables. And he hopes that a budding UA affiliation with a world-renowned genetic research institute will be a spark that initiates those conversations.

Woosley, UAâs vice president for health sciences, believes the research that will result from the new partnership will create a greater interest in genomics, the study of how genes affect biology.

ãI think that the conversations at the dinner table and in restaurants are going to have a much different flavor because people understand genomics,ä Woosley said. ãThey see it around them. And thatâs hard to put a dollar figure on, but itâs real.ä

Those dinner conversations came a step closer to reality last week when Dr. Jeff Trent, a UA graduate and scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, announced that one of the worldâs leading groups of genetic researchers would be moving to Arizona and partnering with the universities.

That announcement marked the beginning of what will likely be a decades-long push to make Arizona a competitive player in what UA President Peter Likins called ãmedicine at the molecular level.ä

Trentâs contribution to the biotechnology push is the International Genomics Consortium, a group of top-flight scientists who are trying to understand the workings of the human genome.

That group will partner with the newly-conceived Translational Genomics Research Institute, which will employ UA researchers to apply IGCâs discoveries to creating practical advances like new medicines.

ãThis is the best science in the world,ä Woosley said.

By way of the scientific breakthroughs officials hope will be made there, the research institute could be a driving force in increasing UAâs national prestige, as well as its potential to attract national grant funding.

Currently, all three Arizona universities combined get only one-half of 1 percent of all funding from the National Institutes of Health, funding that universities use as a measuring stick in comparing themselves with each other.

But with genomics research playing a more prominent role in Arizonaâs universities, Woosley believes National Institute of Health funding will increase.

ãIt is drawing attention to the fact that our state has a commitment to science,ä Woosley said. ãThatâs going to help in subtle ways. Our standing in NIH rankings will be increased by this.ä

Even further down the road though, Likins hopes the increased focus on genomics research will lead to a rise in biotechnology-based companies making a home in Arizona, a result that he believes could drive the stateâs economy and lead lawmakers to increase university funding.

ãThey begin to see universities as engines of the economy,ä Likins said. ãI donât believe the political leaders of Arizona have seen us in that light.ä

But that attitude change, if it comes at all, will not be without a hefty price tag. Trentâs team of 500 scientists working at the NIH has a $100 million annual budget, and the price of bringing the two institutes to Arizona has been estimated at $100 million.

Already, the state has raised $75 million in public and private funds and is looking for another $20-25 million to carry them through their first five years.

None of that money, though, will come from other UA departments, Woosley said.

But UA has promised Trent $10 million worth of non-monetary donations, as well as $7 million to pay his researchers ÷ people who are already UA faculty ÷ and $1 million that has been raised from outside donations for Trentâs salary.

Despite administratorsâ assurances that money will not be taken directly from university departments and given to TGRI, some faculty are still concerned that too few specifics of the relationship between the institute and the university have been defined.

ãWeâve been asked to endorse a very expensive activity without being provided with the nature of the activity,ä said Michael Cusanovich, a biochemistry professor who is also the director of Arizona Research Labs.

Those specifics will likely not be available for about 100 days, when a document is expected to be released outlining the relationship between the research institute and the universities.

Likins said it is possible that some UA researchers might lose funding because of TGRI, partly because some revenue from tobacco sales that had been going to the College of Public Health could be reallocated to the research institute if a tobacco tax increase on the November ballot is rejected.

But he said it is likely that the prestige the institute would bring to the UA would open doors to even more funding opportunities.

ãInstead of looking at this as an opportunity to redistribute the pie, itâs an opportunity to make the pie bigger,ä said Colin Kaltenbach, vice dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Trent met last week with a group of professors and deans to help allay some other fears that had been expressed in a series of forums over the last few months, and to begin finalizing the details of the relationship between the two new institutes and the universities.

Vicki Chandler, a plant sciences professor who was in the meeting, said Trent made it clear that TGRI-affiliated faculty would be guaranteed no special treatment during the hiring and tenure process. That news was a relief to some UA faculty, who were concerned after an earlier document generated from the governorâs office suggested that faculty associated with the institute, which was then known as the Arizona Biotechnology and Biomedicine Institute, would automatically be given tenure.

ãWeâre not giving away any faculty appointments,ä said Woosley, who said it would be ãsuicideä to treat TGRI faculty differently.