UCF medical dean talks to Sanford Burnham’s staff

Several Sanford Burnham faculty members, who have confirmed they are exploring employment outside the institute, met with the dean of UCF’s medical school last week to talk about potential job opportunities.

The meeting comes a year after UCF planned to collaborate with the University of Florida on taking over the facility because Sanford Burnham had decided that it wanted to leave Florida. Their plans, however, unraveled, and the institute’s future in Orlando remains uncertain. So in the past month, scientists at Central Florida’s only nonprofit research institute made it known that they had started looking for jobs and were no longer waiting for their California-based executives to decide what is going to happen to the institute.

Dr. Deborah German extended the invitation to the research institute’s faculty so they

could meet with her and several scientific leaders at UCF and learn about the College of Medicine and its future plans. Ten of the institute’s faculty members took up German’s invitation and met with her last week, she said.

“When I opened the meeting, I made it clear to them that I didn’t want to do anything to undermine their relationship with Sanford Burnham or encourage them to leave, but if they were planning to leave, especially out of state, I did want them to know that UCF is here, and there might be an opportunity for them here,” German said. “It’s important to keep the research and talent here in Central Florida as much as we can.”

German is one of the few — if not the only — local leader who has publicly acknowledged the impending departure of the faculty and met with them as a group to discuss jobs.

For a community that’s intent on growing its life science cluster, the impact of losing Sanford Burnham scientists extends far beyond the agreement that their parent institution signed with local and state officials a decade ago for $350 million in incentive dollars, which is mostly spent by now.

With their exodus, Lake Nona Medical City — and Central Florida — will lose their only non-universitybased hub for basic scientific research and discovery, which also has established itself as one of the leaders in metabolic research.

Despite the success of its scientists, Sanford Burnham officials say they began looking for an exit strategy because the site has been suffering from financial losses because of the recession, declining federal research dollars and dwindling incentive funds.

Sanford Burnham was planning to transfer the building and operations to the University of Florida, but those plans fell through in late October. Then state officials said that Sanford Burnham should pay back $77.6 million in funds for breaching its 2006 contract. The institute disagreed. There have been no recent updates from either side.

Aside from the political battle, no clear solution has emerged to save the institute.

German was hesitant to take credit for being one of the few Central Florida leaders to arrange a meeting with the institute’s faculty in an effort to show them that Central Florida wants them to stay. She said others may have been working behind the scenes or haven’t received the attention.

On Tuesday, Orlando city officials said they had no update regarding plans for the research center and county officials said the same last week.

Developers of Lake Nona and its Medical City said they have tried to be a strong partner.

“Tavistock has been helpful and cooperative every step of the way, and we stand ready to assist with solutions that respect the talent pool and employee base at the facility; however, we do not control the outcome,” said Rasesh Thakkar, senior managing director of Tavistock Group.

German is embarking on her second decade here in the journey to establish a top-tier medical school she built from the ground up. Her focus is now on growing the school’s clinical and research enterprises.

The college is in the process of getting the state’s approval to build a hospital next door. And German isn’t losing site of growing the college’s research arm.

“Every year we have a few opportunities to bring in faculty, and I wanted to make sure that the good people who are already here know that in addition to opportunities out of state, there might be opportunities here,” she said.