UH discontinues Pacific Biosciences Research Center

Published: Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Updated: Monday, August 3, 2009 18:08

The Pacific Biosciences Research Center will be closing down. Because the center is spread out over various locations, including Kewalo Marine Laboratory (pictured above), UH administration felt PBRC lacked focus.

The University of Hawai'i at M?noa administration plans to shut down the Pacific Biosciences Research Center and relocate its estimated 140 faculty and staff to other research departments. The center was cited by the administration for lacking a centralized focus, according to Gary Ostrander, interim director of the center and vice chancellor for research and graduate education. "The faculty (focuses) on research that's highly diverse, from neuroscience to marine biology - activities that are conducted in other departments," he said. "It's a strategic move. Nobody's going to lose their job." The administration announced its intentions to close the center in an e-mail sent to faculty and staff in late August, but it has yet to release a dissolution plan or set a date for closure. Ostrander said that the center's faculty, all of whom are full-time researchers and do not teach classes, will be placed in departments where they will find more resources and support from other professors doing similar types of research - a move that could ultimately help them to secure more funding for their projects. But Marilyn Dunlap, the center's interim associate director, said that dissolving the shutdown will have a negative impact on UH M?noa's research endeavors. "We're extremely disappointed. The PBRC as a whole is better than its divided parts, so we're hoping to remain together," she said. "We believe this matter still needs to go to the Board of Regents." When the administration first announced in December that it was considering dissolving the centerdue to its purported disunity, the faculty responded by presenting a plan to focus on biodiversity, Dunlap said. "We thought we put forward a good plan, but we didn't hear anything from the administration," she said. However, Ostrander said the university lacks the funding and resources needed to reorganize the center around the biodiversity plan. He also noted that other programs already have biodiversity as their focus. Research professor Daniel Hartline, who has been part of the center for 30 years, said that its facilities are unparalleled in other departments. "We have top-notch computer resources that are tailored to our particular fields of research. We can do things here that we can't in other departments," he said. Hartline, whose research involves the invertebrate nervous system, said that he does not fit in other departments because those that are most similar to his field of research either have a medical or vertebrate focus. "The PBRC provides a unique, research-friendly environment. The plan to disband us reflects an abysmal lack of understanding of what's going on here," he said. "The research done here is important to the UH community and Hawai'i in general."