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The Stowers Institute for Medical Research seeks more effective means of preventing and curing
disease through basic research on genes and proteins that control fundamental processes of cellular life.
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Scientific Philosophy
The Stowers Institute conducts basic research aimed
at understanding how the genes and proteins of multicellular organisms work. The
Institute has focused its resources in this field of science because genes and
their protein products determine the development and sustenance of normal life
and hold the key to the origin of disease.
DNA carries in its sequence the genes that encode
vast numbers of different proteins that are synthesized throughout the life cycle.
It also encodes the regulatory instructions that determine exactly when and where
each of those genes will be expressed. The Institute's research on genes and gene
regulatory mechanisms will include explorations of both the normal expression
of genetic information in development and abnormal expression in diseases such
as cancer.
The basic goal is to understand the flow of genetic
information during life and the translation of this information into functioning
proteins that govern how cells multiply, differentiate, migrate, and die. Research
conducted in pursuit of this goal is widely acknowledged to be crucial to the
advancement of medical science. Many research organizations in the United States
and elsewhere devote resources to these issues.
The Institute emphasizes the following approaches:
- Research programs seek to penetrate the organization and regulation of the
genome to understand how complex patterns of gene expression are controlled
and what they mean.
- Research programs employ sophisticated approaches to solve problems of genomic
and proteomic function, including life processes that involve many interacting
macromolecules and causally linked functions.
- Research programs strive to identify predisposing genes and proteins involved
in diseases such as cancer so that diagnostic tools and new therapeutic strategies
can be developed.
- Research programs rely on state-of-the-art technologies that allow Institute
scientists to deal with biological complexity, e.g. gene sequencing, gene
expression arrays, analytic technologies of proteomics such as mass spectrometry
and advanced protein separation methodologies. This requires an unusually
interdisciplinary approach that ensures close collaboration with other scientists.
- Research programs employ model systems such as the mouse, fruit fly, sea
urchin and yeast to discern the role and regulation of genes and proteins
relevant to human physiology and disease.
- Research programs employ the latest methods of bioinformatics and will develop
new computational tools in collaboration with computer scientists and applied
mathematicians.
- Research programs at the Institute actively seek meaningful collaboration
with similar programs at other research institutions. The modern tools of
communication technology will be employed to assure the success of these collaborations.
Scientific personnel above the level of postdoctoral research scientists will be chosen
according to the same research credentials that apply to tenure-track appointments
at premier research universities and to appointments of independent investigators
at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Stowers Institute will compete for
the best of the best in staffing its Kansas City laboratories.
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