Dr. David Beck: Scientist and President and CEO of The Coriell Institute

President and CEO
Coriell Institute for Medical Research

It would be hard to find a person out there who has not in some way been touched by major illness. Whether you have endured a bout with Diabetes, lost someone to cancer, or live with the risk of a genetic disorder, the realities of illness are everywhere. Will they ever find a cure for cancer? Will Jerry Lewis ever be able to stop holding Muscular Dystrophy telethons?

There's no simple answer to these questions, according to David Beck, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden. The search for cures is hardly a one-step process. All of the small discoveries we learn about in the news - a gene mutation, for example - puts scientists one step closer to giving Jerry Lewis a Labor Day off.

"There are a lot of discoveries that have to be made yet before we can cure cancer or diabetes or AIDS. We know how to cure measles and mumps and pneumonia. Many years ago, research proved that vaccinations and medications prevent this diseases," said Dr. Beck.

But diseases like cancer are different. "These difficult diseases have to do with how our genes work. The future of medicine will come out of the understanding of genetics. This system is exposing itself to us day by day - but it's a big puzzle," said Dr. Beck. Optimistically, however, Dr. Beck believes scientists - maybe even the ones working this moment at Coriell in Camden - will make chemotherapy pass. "In my lifetime, there will be gene therapy for cystic fibrosis, some other diseases, maybe even some simple cancers like skin or colon cancer. I can see that happening sometime in the next 10 to 15 years," he said.

Birth of a Scientist

When Dr. Beck went to work for the National Institutes of Health in 1978, he had just completed 12 years of postgraduate studies at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and a host of other prestigious educational institutions. He felt very comfortable in the science laboratory and was looking forward to a career at the "lab bench."

"Like any other young scientist, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to explore things that no one else knew anything about. Someone would ask a good question and I was in a position to get them an answer. I could get answers to how things work in nature and that's a heady experience," he recalled.

Sitting among his test tubes, he believed that the future of science and the answers to all the questions started with test tubes at a lab bench. "People are messy to work with, you can never get the exact answer. I really though test tubes would be easier to work with." But the young scientist quickly learned that nothing is as simple as it seems. The fact is, scientists at lab benches need money to continue their research. The money comes from people. And, as Dr. Beck grew in his world of science, he recognized that working with people was the way to go. "I had more fun when I started to work with people and found they weren't as quite a messy system to work with," he said laughing.

In his work, Dr. Beck was fortunate to learn early on about the relationship between science and money. This is a lesson young scientists aren't excited about learning. It's easier, and more powerful, for a young kid to think he or she sits at the helm of a new discovery. But those discoveries must be funded. Indeed, science, according to Dr. Beck, is more than a good idea and skilled scientists at work - the financial backing is extremely crucial to the world of research science.

"The enterprise of doing research in this country, whether it's biomedical or chemical research, is much more than going to the lab bench and playing with the test tubes," Dr. Beck admitted. "It's much more complicated. There is science policy and science finance (how to manage finances that support research enterprise), and the training of people."

After completing the intense one-year Grants Associate program at the National Institute of Health, which is a lot like a master's degree in science administration, Dr. Beck found his true calling as a scientific administrator.

Bringing Science to the People

"I left the lab bench but never left science. I constantly write and speak about science and have to keep information in front of people. I have to keep the taxpayers - the people who fund science - informed about what is going on so they will keep funding it," said the Coriell CEO.

Over the years, he has served in myriad impressive positions including program administrator for the Cellular and Molecular Basis of Disease Program and then as chief of Molecular and Medical Genetics - both at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.

Just prior to coming to Coriell in 1991 as president and CEO, Dr. Beck served as the associate director for administration for the Public Health Research Institute from 1984 to 1991. If you think of the words "director of administration" and have to fight the urge to yawn, you haven't spent much time around Dr. Beck.

As the chief scientific administrator at Coriell, Dr. Beck wears many hats. Behind the scenes, he's the guy who figures out how to raise the money that will keep the scientists at the lab benches. But in the public eyes, Dr. Beck is quite a public relations officer. "I'm the front man for Coriell," he said. "I spend a great deal of time figuring out how to raise the money to support the work we do. If the institute needs a piece of equipment, we need the money to buy it.

"This mean I have to try to let everyone know how important the equipment is to our research. Through public speaking and an aggressive public relations campaign, we need to get the message across that we would have the same healthcare that our parents had 25 years ago if we hadn't done research.

"And if we don't do research today - if people don't have the faith that in the long-term, research is necessary - our children will not have the next generation of healthcare."

The Big Bucks

Don't fool yourself; the world of science is big business. The National Institutes of Health, comprised of 16 institutes, has a budget of $17 billion for health research in fiscal 2000. NIH is Coriell's major source of funding grants. When Dr. Beck came to Coriell in 1991, it was with a purpose. While the purpose of his team is to work toward new discoveries, Dr. Beck's purpose is winning new financial grants to support that research.

"I see my job as building our research programs and the relationship Coriell has with the state by keeping our mission in front of our many supporters," he said. "My most important job right now is keeping the public and legislature very well informed about what we do so they will keep funding our work."

Coriell competes for grants and contracts with other research institutions hard at work at their own projects. Coriell's major program, its aging cell repository, has been supported by the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health, since 1974.

In addition to NIH grants, the Coriell Institute manages its $10 million budget by receiving some state funding, as well. In fact, in an effort to prove Coriell's value to New Jersey legislators and citizens, the institute is hoping to be part of the renaissance of Camden, Dr. Beck pointed out.

Coriell - On the Verge of the Future

Thanks to a partnership between New Jersey and the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, the country's first-ever public cord blood bank will someday come to fruition.

A cord blood bank is a place where women can donate the cord blood from their placentas after having a baby. Coriell will freeze and store the blood, making it available for future. The only cord blood banks that exist today are private. A woman who donates the blood from her placenta can pay to have the blood frozen and stored for her own, or her family's, future use.

The New Jersey Public Cord Blood Bank will accept donations free of charge and make the blood available to anyone who might need it in the future. The project is currently being defined by the New Jersey Department of Health but Dr. Beck hopes to start working on the cord blood bank this fall. In other areas of research, Dr. Beck is excited about the institute's growing Leukemia research program.

In the past, it's been very difficult to study Leukemia because scientists had no choice but to study the disease in patients. "We couldn't create experimental Leukemias to study, so it's been difficult to see how the disease unfolds in an organism."

But two years ago, Domenique Bonett came to Coriell. The research scientist has created a "mouse model" for Leukemia research. The mouse is missing its immune system. "When we inject human leukemia cells in the mouse, the human leukemia grows in the mouse. This allows us to study the disease without having to study the human," Dr. Beck explained.

About The Coriell Institute

The Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden is known internationally as a world leader in the field of medical research. In the late 1940's, Lewis L. Coriell, M.D., Ph.D. used cell cultures to study human viral diseases, playing a major role in bringing the Salk polio vaccine to the public. Impressed with Dr. Coriell's work, local business leaders helped him to establish a basic research facility in 1953.

Dr. Coriell and his colleagues at the institute pioneered many cell culture techniques which are now standard throughout the world, including the adaptation of laminar air flow technology for use in sterile laboratory and hospital settings. They used these techniques to make many advances in understanding cancer and infectious diseases.

In addition to conducting its own research, Coriell serves the entire scientific community by housing the world's largest collection of living human cells for research. This collection is stored in the John T. Dorrance, Jr. International Cell Science Center. The identification of genes associated with Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer disease, and a severe form of manic depression, among many others, relied on cells from these collections.

Staffed by experts in microbiology, molecular biology, cytogenetics, cell biology, and molecular genetics, the Coriell Cell Repositories play a vital role in modern biomedical research. More than 100,000 cell lines have been distributed from Coriell's repositories to researchers in 50 nations, resulting in over 9,000 research publications. Although Dr. Coriell retired and Dr. Beck now heads up the future of Coriell, he said it's really his team of scientists who deserve all the credit.

"One of the things that I really like to do is to recruit some really good scientists and good administrators and support them and stay out of their way," said Dr. Beck.

"I've found a successful formula here at Coriell: you take a strong administration that provides support for scientists; you find scientists who can do the work that needs to be done, and you put in place the infrastructure that supports the work. At Coriell, we have been able to do this successfully."