Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC)
Jonathan Silverstein, Scientific Director
Goals: The mission of the
Chicago Biomedical
Consortium (CBC) is to
stimulate collaboration
among scientists at
Northwestern University
(Leader: Rick Morimoto),
the University of Chicago
(Leader, and CI Associate
Director: Jonathan Silverstein), and the
University of Illinois at Chicago (Leader: Brenda
Russell) that will transform research at the
frontiers of biomedicine, it will: stimulate
research and education that bridge institutional
boundaries; enable collaborative and
interdisciplinary research that is beyond the
range of a single institution; recruit and retain a
strong cadre of biomedical leaders and
researchers in Chicago; promote the
development of the biomedical industry in
Chicago; execute a plan capable of improving
the health of citizens of Chicago and beyond.
Significance: The CBC has ushered in a new level of collaboration and commitment to working across the Chicago region together on major projects in biomedicine, particularly in Systems Biology, a key subset of the broader field of Computational Biology and a focus area for the CI and Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology (IGSB). CBC’s major funding is from a generous gift of $5 Million per year from the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust.
Accomplishments: The CBC has built a proteomics and informatics research resource at the University of Illinois at Chicago including equipment and support for a FT-Mass Spectrometer, computational clusters and algorithms for analysis of this high resolution data and Access Grid nodes for collaborators. The CBC supported the recruitment of Kevin White, Director of the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology. The CBC has funded four new small inter-institutional inter-disciplinary collaborations in systems biology, held several symposia, and is working toward larger projects through its Lever program.
