Beginning with the recruitment of two of the world’s most acclaimed geneticists, Margaret Pericak-Vance and Jeffery Vance, M.D., the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine is positioning itself to be a worldwide presence in the field of human genomics. Arriving from Duke University in January, the Vances are leading a team of investigators that is part of the new Miami Institute for Human Genomics and a proposed Department of Human Genetics.

While at Duke, the Vances and their researchers at the Center for Human Genetics uncovered critical genetic links to the origins of more than 50 diseases, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autism, age-related macular degeneration, and multiple sclerosis. Margaret Pericak-Vance was director of Duke’s Center for Human Genetics, James B. Duke Professor of Medicine, and chief of the Section of Medical Genetics at Duke University Medical Center. Jeffery Vance was associate director of the Center for Human Genetics, professor of medicine, and director of the Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of Excellence. Twelve additional faculty members from Duke brought their genetic research to the Miller School, joined by more than 20 research personnel. They will collaborate with scientists at The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Center for Medical Genetics.

“We’re a very integrated group, we’re multidisciplinary, and we work together on a daily basis,” Jeffery Vance says. “The University of Miami has two of the best academic leaders in the country: Pascal Goldschmidt and Donna Shalala, and there are some terrific researchers—in diabetes, spinal cord injury, cancer, eye disease, autism, and many other areas—who present real opportunities for collaboration.”

Building a premier genomics institute is one of the critical initiatives that Pascal Goldschmidt, M.D., outlined when he became senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School of Medicine. Such an institute, he says, “will create a formidable opportunity to apply the new knowledge brought out by the Human Genome Project and translate that knowledge into findings that will help our patients survive some of the most deadly diseases.”