Contact: Jennifer Hollingshead
Office: (573) 882-0601
E-mail: hollingsheadj@umsystem.edu
The proposed ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ of Missouri-Columbia health sciences center to be financed from the Lewis & Clark Discovery Initiative will focus on treating cancer and teaching future health care professionals, UM President Elson S. Floyd said Thursday.
President Floyd told Missouri newspaper publishers and editors the proposed structure would not house medical research laboratories. If such laboratories are built, the ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ would not use funds from the Lewis & Clark Discovery Initiative for that purpose. The new building would host relocated functions of Ellis Fischel Cancer Center and an expansion of the ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, the president told members of the Missouri Press Association and The Associated Press.
"This should clear away any question about whether stem cell research would occur in a ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ of Missouri structure paid for with proceeds from the Lewis & Clark Discovery Initiative," President Floyd said. "It also removes any question about protecting the ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ's academic freedom."
President Floyd continued: "The ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ of Missouri will utilize these funds for facilities to teach future healers and to battle cancer – missions that were always intended to be part of this new structure, consistent with the ¾Ã²ÝÈȾòÝÊÓÆµ's missions of education, service to our citizens and building our state economy."
Reviewed 2010-06-17