Friday, September 5, 2014 will mark the formal inauguration of the University of Michigan's 14th president Mark S. Schlissel.

The inauguration day will kick off with an inaugural symposium at 8:30 am in Blau Auditorium at the The Ross School of Business called "Sustaining the Biomedical Research Enterprise."

This moment marks one of the most hopeful and exciting times in biomedical discovery with advanced technologies yielding deep and productive insight into human health and disease. This is also a moment of profound challenge with decreasing funding for science and a public that is skeptical of the relative value of continued investment in research.

Director of the National Cancer Institute and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus will frame and catalyze a discussion with distinguished UM faculty experts about this critical crossroads and how universities can help to pave the way forward.

Schedule:

Introduction to the Conversation: The Current Challenges and Opportunities in Biomedical Research

Harold E. Varmus, MD
Director
National Cancer Institute
US National Institutes of Health

Response and Discussion

Moderator:

David Ginsburg, MD
James V. Neel Distinguished University Professor
Department of Human Genetics, UM Medical School
Research Professor, UM Life Sciences Institute
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Faculty Panel:

Goncalo Abecasis
Felix E. Moore Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics
UM School of Public Health

Huda Akil
Distinguished University Professor and Quarton Professor of Neurosciences
Department of Psychiatry, UM Medical School
Co-Director and Research Professor, Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute

Anna Mapp
Edwin Vedejs Collegiate Professor of Chemistry
UM College of Literature, Science and the Arts
Research Professor, UM Life Sciences Institute
Director, Graduate Program in Chemical Biology

Douglas C. Noll
Ann and Robert H. Lurie Professor of Biomedical Engineering
UM College of Engineering