Message from the CEO/Dean

The Division of the Biological Sciences is committed to innovative scholarship in biological science and its application to human health. One novel feature of this commitment is our integration of traditionally "collegiate" subjects such as Ecology, Evolution, Paleontology, Invertebrate Biology, and the like with traditional biomedical subjects such as Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Human Genetics, Medicine, Surgery, and so forth. Of course, recent advances that permit cross-species and evolutionary genomic analyses of organismal form and function make this broader approach completely logical and synergistic with analyses of human disease.

Using this unique approach, the Biomedical and Health Sciences at the University of Chicago extends a remarkable legacy of discovery. Such discoveries are overviewed elsewhere on this website and extend from the seminal contributions of the Nobelist Charles Huggins, related to the hormonal control of neoplasia, to more recent discoveries spanning the biological spectrum from analyses of the molecular basis of polygenic diseases such as diabetes to insights regarding molecular modes of both rapid evolution and species-selective plant cell adhesion during reproduction. Emerging plans to intertwine efforts in Biological Sciences with those in Physical and Social Sciences and the Argonne National Laboratory will no doubt facilitate future discovery.

We also believe that first-rate research, education and patient care demands first-rate facilities. To this end we have recently completed the Center for Integrative Science, which brings biological and physical scientists together, and the Comer Children's Hospital and Comer Pediatric Emergency Room. We have started construction on the Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, a 330,000 square foot research building dedicated to research programs from our clinical departments and the Cancer Research Center.

James L. Madara, M.D.
CEO, University of Chicago Medical Center
Dean, Division of the Biological Sciences & the Pritzker School of Medicine
University Vice President for Medical Affairs.

Dean Madara