University of Miami luring top researchers

The University of Miami medical school has embarked on a billion-dollar campaign to become a top research center and create the conditions for biotech success seen in places like Boston and Cambridge and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, a story in today's Miami Herald says.

The school, led by university president and Clinton administration Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, has hired away 51 of the 180 researchers at the Duke University Center for Human Genetics over the past year, the story says. Miami is pouring money into new research centers, but it's also helping with housing costs, the school told the paper.

Within the past six months, the story says, Miami's medical school has brought these researchers on board, along with about $70 million in multiyear grants from the National Institutes of Health:

Dr. Joshua M. Hare, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and seven colleagues.

Dr. Marc Estes Lippman, a breast-cancer researcher at the University of Michigan, and 30 colleagues.

Dr. Ralph Sacco, a Columbia University stroke expert, and 10 colleagues.

Dr. Julio Licinio, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and 20 colleagues.

Miami spokesman Omar Montejo told the Globe today that no Boston researchers are among the scientists recently recruited to the medical school.