'Synergy' is the key word behind transfer of USDA nutrition center
By Patricia Bailey
Although it is three years and millions of dollars away, the transfer of
a U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition research center from San Francisco
to UC Davis already is generating enthusiasm over the wealth of collaborative
opportunities that the move will make possible for both federal and university
scientists.
The Western Human Nutrition Research Center has been located at the Presidio
since 1980, but with rent costing $700,000 annually, USDA began looking
for a new, less isolated home. Since the army closed its Letterman Army
Institute of Research at the Presidio in 1994, center scientists found themselves
occupying just one-tenth of the 350,000-square-foot building.
Seeing the research center as an ideal complement to related programs in
the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, as well as the schools
of medicine and veterinary medicine, campus leaders marshaled their resources
and presented a winning proposal to USDA. The campus has offered USDA a
site for the new facility located just north of Medical Sciences I, south
of Hutchison Drive.
The decision to relocate the center to UC Davis was announced April 9 by
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef and U.S. Rep. Vic Fazio, D-West Sacramento,
who is a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, which controls
the budgets of federal agencies.
The move also will bring the center into an official collaborative relationship
with researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. It will occur in three
years, pending funding by Congress. Meanwhile, researchers and administrators
at the center and on the Davis campus are looking forward to the transfer.
"Being on a major campus of the University of California, it is much
more likely the center will be nourished and maintained," said Gary
Carlson, a research chemist and acting center director. "The campus
location will offer the advantage of close collaboration with researchers
from the life sciences and health sciences, plus a fine library and a research
environment."
Center researchers also welcome the possibility of teaching some campus
courses and associating with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows,
who are key to scientific research, Carlson added.
"Currently, we're so isolated that we don't have opportunities for
the kinds of contacts that we will have on campus," he said.
Carlson's sentiments were echoed by Barbara Schneeman, a nutrition professor
as well as dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
"I think collaboration is one of the primary ways our researchers will
interact with the center," said Schneeman.
"It's important to realize that the impact of that potential for collaboration
goes well beyond the scope of nutrition and really relates to our medical,
human development and food science faculty, and also to our plant scientists
who are interested in developing crops that better meet nutrient requirements."
Center researchers focus their studies on how dietary, environmental, behavioral
and genetic factors affect nutrient requirements and function.
Current areas of interest include Vitamin E and beta-carotene, the role
of essential fatty acids in health, trace minerals and energy metabolism,
Carlson said.
The center employs 65 people, including 12 staff scientists plus technical
and administrative support staff, he said. Researchers at the center are
already collaborating with UC Davis scientists on research projects in the
areas of cell biology, nutrition and chemistry.
Although USDA has decided to move the center to UC Davis, funding for that
move, including construction of a 40,000 -square-foot campus research facility,
has not been secured.
Final cost of the future facility is uncertain, but USDA officials have
been eyeing a
construction tab in the neighborhood of $12 million to $20 million, according
to Carlson.
