Med schools are building, but the well's run dry

When it comes to funding construction, America's biomedical-research colleges may be approaching the perfect storm.

Nationwide, medical schools have continued to engage in ambitious expansion projects with the expectation that federal funding will help foot the bill.

But a 13 percent decline in the inflation-adjusted budget of the National Institutes of Health since 2003 has left higher-education experts wondering how universities are going to pay for their new facilities.

A 2006 survey of 84 schools conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that these schools plan to increase their net research space by 26 percent.

Curiously, they also expect federal research grants from the NIH - the main source for biomedical-research funds - to increase 30 percent from 2003 to 2008.

"It's a disconnect," says Howard Dickler, clinical-research director for the AAMC. "Research capacity is expanding, but the NIH budget is losing purchasing power. Some places are going to lose out."

Penn is in the midst of constructing several new research facilities, including the new $370 million biomedical-research tower planned for completion in 2010.

But despite the decline in federal funds, Glen Gaulton, executive vice dean of the Medical School, was still positive, saying he expects NIH funding to pick back up to 3 to 5 percent annual growth.

If the funding does not increase, however, the University may have to hold off on completing labs and other facilities in two floors of the research tower, he said.

And while Penn's status as a top research institution will prevent funding problems from doing much damage, Dickler and other experts say Gaulton's projections may be a little unrealistic.

"Researchers tend to be optimistic, but this is a long-term shift toward fewer dollars available for biomedical research," said Kei Koizumi, Budget and Policy program director at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Funding woes may end up becoming a larger problem for less-prominent medical schools, which first started their building boom when Congress doubled the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003.

But most schools didn't actually start construction until after 2003, when Congress saw more opportunities in physical-science research, and the competition for biomedical funds grew tighter.

"This is a serious issue for universities," Koizumi said. "You have to fill the lab space once you build it, and we're finding that universities are financing a lot of these projects through debt."

And some Penn professors believe the lack of funding could have far-reaching effects.

"There's a growing consensus that the U.S. has lost its competitive advantage in research," said Biology department Chairman Richard Schultz. "The funding climate in this country is the worst it's been since NIH's inception."

Schultz, who receives NIH funding for some of his research projects, added that many of his students are leaving the sciences in search of better job opportunities.

"We can't blame them, because we look around and see how difficult it's become," he said. "But where's the next generation of scientists going to come from?"

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