University of Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY OF Michigan, Ann Arbor, is a coeducational public research university in the state of Michigan. The university was founded in 1817 in Detroit, about 20 years before the territory of Michigan became a state, and moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. Today, it is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan system, which now has two satellite campuses, the University of Michigan, Flint, and the University of Michigan, Dearborn. In its last published survey in 1995, the National Research Council ranked the University of Michigan third in [Page 585]the United States in a study that aggregated evaluations of 41 graduate disciplines. The university has one of the largest research expenditures of any American university and one of the largest groups of living alumni, numbering 420,000 individuals.

The university owns one of the top academic medical centers in the United States, the University of Michigan Health System. The University of Michigan is recognized for its history of student activism and its athletic teams, notably football, men's basketball, and ice hockey. It is considered one of the original eight “Public Ivies.”

The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) at the University of Michigan is a hub for collaboration among outstanding scientists from a variety of life sciences disciplines, focusing on the biological problems of human health. The LSI is composed of the laboratories of faculty members from a wide range of life science disciplines including biology, chemistry, pharmacology, bioinformatics, medicine, physiology, genetics, and biochemistry. Areas of focus for the LSI are emergent, with established strengths in chemical biology, signal transduction, structural biology, and genetics of disease.

The LSI faculty members work in all the major research systems and levels: in silico, macromol—ecules, bacteria, yeast, worms, flies, mice, and humans. Prominently included disease areas include cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disorders. Each faculty member or group leader is jointly appointed in one of the University of Michigan's schools or colleges; appointments span 16 different departments in the University of Michigan's Medical School, College of Pharmacy, and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

The Center for Stem Cell Biology, a division of the LSI, was established with $10.5 million in funding provided by the University of Michigan Medical School, the LSI, and the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute (MBNI) in September 2005. Under the leadership of noted stem cell scientist Sean Morrison, the center has recruited two faculty members and will recruit up to five more, whose laboratories will be located in the LSI, the Medical School, or MBNI. The center will emphasize using stem cell science to answer the most pressing questions of fundamental human biology, such as how specific tissues in the body are formed and how cells communicate with one another.

University of Michigan scientists have made notable advances in many areas of stem cell science, especially those involving tissue—specific and cancer stem cells. The University of Michigan Medical School is home to one of only three National Institutes of Health—funded human embryonic stem cell research centers in the United States. The new center will expand current areas of research strength by using stem cells to pursue basic biological questions. The center is also home to a stem cell research room for the study of stem cell lines created with private donations.

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