Arizona Biomedical Collaborative

[conceptualized; negotiated; in design]

Another example of how we engage our cultural, socioeconomic, and physical setting is the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative. In a metropolitan region with a population that exceeds three million, a population, moreover, that includes a significant number of aging adults and families with inadequate medical care, quality health care is a major social issue. There has been periodic discussion of developing a medical school at ASU, but the University of Arizona already has an excellent emerging medical school. At this point I believe it would be redundant, and a duplication of resources, for ASU to launch a second medical school.

To address the significant local need for enhanced biomedical research and service, Arizona State University, in partnership with the University of Arizona, will develop complementary interdisciplinary research programs in what will be the major growth industries of the 21st century—biotechnology and the biosciences. We are already moving forward with the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative, an initiative that will prove groundbreaking in its scope, and will complement the academic programs and health care services of the medical school of the University of Arizona, and the scientific research taking place at the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.