Research
UMMS has emerged on the national scene as a research center. In 1998, UMMS researcher Craig Mello (an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) and his colleague Andrew Fire (of Stanford University, then of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C.) discovered RNA interference (RNAi). Mello and Fire demonstrated that small pieces of double-stranded RNA had interfered with the expression of a gene whose coding sequence of DNA was similar to that of the RNA they tested. Since the discovery of RNAi, researchers at UMMS and around the world have taken advantage of its technology to speed investigation into a variety of diseases. Mello and Fire received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries related to RNA interference.
UMMS scientists also pioneered the fundamental elements of DNA-based flu vaccines during the 1990s. UMMS Professor of Medicine Shan Lu, leader of the UMMS DNA vaccine efforts, and his colleagues have partnered with PowerMed (a British immunotherapeutics company) to advance the development of a potential avian-flu vaccine. Lu’s team has also been recognized for its work in the creation of an HIV vaccine, which in Phase I testing was found to generate antibody and T-cell responses in otherwise-healthy people not infected with HIV.
The institution’s strong commitment to its research mission is reflected in its ranking second of ten public medical schools in the northeastern U.S. in funds awarded by the National Institutes of Health. Federal and private research grants and contracts at UMMS rose from about $2 million in 1977 to more than $307.6 million in 2011, putting UMMS in the top third of all research-based medical schools. UMMS currently supports more than 260 investigators working on advancements in the treatment of disease and injury.
The UMMS portfolio of commercial ventures and intellectual property continues to reap dividends for the institution and the University of Massachusetts system. Catapulted by the success of UMMS licenses and patents (including intellectual property related to RNAi gene-silencing technology and drug and vaccine development), UMass ranked eighth in the nation in generating income from the licensing of faculty-derived discoveries and products and generated $70,553,428 in technology-transfer income in FY 2009, executing 50 technology licenses and options and creating one start-up company (according to the fiscal year 2009 report released by the Association of University Technology Managers).
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