The Houston Chronicle has added another blog — Eric Berger’s SciGuy — to its impressive and expanding Chronicle bloglist that Chronicle tech writer Dwight Silverman has spearheaded. Kudos to Dwight and the Chronicle editors for being pioneers in this emerging method of delivering their product to customers.
In this post, Mr. Berger notes the National Institutes of Health annual ranking of U.S. medical schools by the amount of research funding, which is a key indicator of a medical school faculty’s research capabilities. Here is a listing of medical schools of local interest:
1. John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., $449 million
11. Baylor College of Medicine, $248 million
21. UT Southwestern Med. Center, Dallas, $172 million
35. Cornell Univ. Medical School (Methodist Hospital) $124 million
39. UT Medical Branch at Galveston, $104 million
48. UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, $80 million
64. UT Health Science Center at Houston, $51 million
In addition, although not a medical school, UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the Texas Medical Center generated another $145 million in research last year. Consequently, as Mr. Berger notes, the institutions in the Texas Medical Center pump almost half a billion of research funds into the local economy.
By the way, the NIH list dovetails nicely with the ranking of university endowments that was noted in this earlier post. Given the size of Baylor Medical School’s endowment and annual research funding, one has to respect the risk that Baylor took in ending its longtime partnership with the even better-endowed Methodist Hospital ($2.3 billion endowment). Hopefully, the competition between the two institutions for research funds will enhance the amount and quality of research being performed at the Texas Medical Center.