Research has begun in interim labs as interest explodes in a project plagued by a squabble over promised land.
By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published October 3, 2004
BOCA RATON - Chris Baker, a Scripps Florida research associate with a $1-million budget, is being buttonholed by yet another lab equipment salesman at the institute's temporary home at Florida Atlantic University.
Up the road in Palm Beach, Steve Kay, a veteran Scripps scientist, is interviewing potential hires in luxe surroundings at the Breakers hotel. And over in West Palm Beach, Will Ray, Scripps' lead fundraiser, is heading to Boston to scout out philanthropists with an interest in medical research and a winter place in South Florida.
A year after Gov. Jeb Bush announced a multimillion-dollar government incentive to bring a branch of the California research powerhouse to Florida, Scripps' staffers are slogging through the minutiae that will make it happen. From Bush's initial top-secret meetings at Scripps' La Jolla campus in July 2003, through a whirlwind special legislative session in October, the project has been distinguished by a sense of urgency unusual in a public-private partnership.
In early November lawmakers approved $310-million in federal funds ($369-million with interest) for Scripps. Palm Beach County chipped in $200-million for construction of a research facility. In January, Scripps and the state signed a contract that gave the institute seven years to create 545 jobs in return for the public windfall.
"The clock is ticking," said Kay, who has been intimately involved with the project from the start as vice chairman of the Scripps Florida steering committee. "That requires you to hit the ground running."
While the Scripps team in Florida has tried to remain laser-focused on its goal, there have been considerable distractions. Location is the big one.
The contract calls for Scripps to begin construction in January on a former orange grove known as Mecca Farms on the northwestern edge of Palm Beach County. It had been assured for months by county officials that the site could be developed without major delays.
Then last summer, environmentalists and antisprawl lobbyists began to take exception to the county's plans as details of the massive development emerged. They have threatened lawsuits to block it, citing concerns about density of the development, damage to wetlands and spillover effects of adjacent development on Everglades restoration.
County commissioners responded by asking Scripps to consider two alternate sites along Interstate 95. In mid September, Scripps' board of trustees, noting that the contract legally binds both parties to the Mecca site, said it remains committed to that location.
While Scripps' top executives handle the friction inevitable in trying to bring such an enormous project to fruition, staffers in Palm Beach County try to tune out the noise. Since April, researchers, equipment and experiments have been filling vacant lab space at FAU's campus in Boca Raton. About 45 miles north on FAU's Jupiter campus, a second interim home for Scripps is under construction, with completion scheduled for January.
Kay, who so far has recruited about 30 scientists, said the Jupiter lab will be filled by late 2005. He and other Scripps' employees delicately avoid the location fray, saying they can work anywhere. If pressed, they'll admit the controversy absorbs unnecessary energy and, if it continues to fester, could seriously impede their mission.
"The site uncertainty hasn't hurt us yet, because our donors are not in town," Ray said of his target audience. "But when they get back, there will be questions to answer."
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Like most Scripps scientists, Steve Kay has done far more than tinker in the lab. In addition to his research at Scripps on circadian rhythms, the 44-year-old Britisher helped build an institute funded by Novartis that does preclinical drug discovery. He ran a biotech spinoff. And now he's helping to lay the groundwork for Scripps Florida, which he describes as a unique blend of scientific skills.
"It will merge academic science, advanced technology and drug discovery," Kay said recently at the Breakers, his Florida base during trips East. "It really will create an inflection point. Ten years from now, other states will look back and wish they'd done the same thing."
Kay is tapping diverse networks in the search for talent: academia, biotech companies and the pharmaceutical industry. "I've got three sets of jungle bells ringing," he said.
Word traveled fast after a rocky start. When he began calling potential hires before Christmas, inviting them to consider the Palm Beach County endeavor, Kay said they would respond, "Palm what?"
Then Charles Weissmann, a 72-year-old scientist renowned for cloning interferon, co-founding Biogen and performing groundbreaking research on mad cow disease, agreed to head the infectology department at Scripps Florida. Suddenly Kay is flooded with interested applicants.
"I'm going to make a lot of enemies because I'm not compromising, not lowering the bar for anyone," he said. His chief requirement: "I want people with a hunger to do something different."
The difference at Scripps Florida will be the meshing of basic biomedical research with cutting-edge technologies that can expedite routine lab work. Drug discovery experts then will move lab findings one step closer to commercialization.
Kay describes the traditional university research model as one where the train pulls into the station, then slowly rusts, with discoveries untapped. "In our model," he said, "the train pulls into the station and scientists have to jump on."
With a flair for analogies and a willingness to play the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" of Scripps, Kay describes scientists' often incomprehensible work as simply a matter of finding the right key for the right lock.
First researchers have to find the proteins - the lock - that have gone wrong in a particular disease. Then they have to find the right molecule - the key - to change the way the protein works.
"Then you have to twiddle around with the molecule to make it better and show it's efficient and safe in humans," Kay said. "The molecule from the library is never the one you want."
A team of four medicinal chemists already at work on Scripps' Boca Raton campus have so far synthesized more than 40 molecules, he added.
If Kay seems a bit breezy about the challenge at hand, he's not entirely immune to the pressures of his job. Based on Scripps' contract with the state, Kay figures he needs to hire about one person every three days to create the kind of research magnet promised, spinning off thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact within the next decade.
"I feel like I have five elephants sitting on my head," he said. "But I'd not ever want to take on anything easy."
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When he read that the illustrious Charles Weissmann had signed on for Scripps Florida, Chris Baker did something rather bold for a Yale University post-doctorate student. He wrote Weissmann, proposing a meeting in Palm Beach.
Soon after, the 31-year-old found himself breakfasting at the Breakers with Weissmann and Dr. Richard Lerner, president of Scripps. The next thing Baker knew, he was on his way to five weeks of study at Weissmann's lab at University College in London.
By late April, Baker had relocated to Florida, where he is a research associate in Weissmann's infectology department. With his boss dividing his time between Florida and London until early 2005, Baker's assignment has been to get the lab up and running.
"When I started, there were no phones, fax or even paper," said Baker, who has his doctorate in neuroscience. "But I was allowed a degree of independence and responsibility at Yale, so by the time I met with Charles, I felt confident I could set up a lab. I liked the thought of coming from an institution more than 300 years old to one that's not even 3 months old."
By September, Baker's lab was nearly fully equipped with high-priced instruments that spin, scan and screen cells for infectious disease. All regulatory requirements for a biohazard lab had been met. Two research assistants had been hired, three more scientists were due to arrive within days and the research had begun.
As part of Weissmann's research on mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Baker will be focusing on why many people who ate infected beef did not get ill. If he can identify the environmental or genetic factors that prevented people from getting sick, it will help identify those genes that are susceptible to the disease. That could lead to the development of drugs targeting the genes, drugs that also might be effective against other neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.
When he entered Bowling Green State University in Ohio several years ago as an undergraduate, Baker had a vague notion of becoming a psychologist. A research professor exposed him to lab work and Baker was hooked for life. Now he's eager to share his passion with everyone. "I want our work to be transparent to the public," he said.
Nor is Baker disappointed that sometimes the mission gets bogged down in controversy. On one wall of his lab, he has taped satellite photos of the alternative sites proposed for Scripps Florida, plus the recent front page of a local weekly paper with the headline Go Home Scripps!
"I don't care where we go," he said. "As long as I can work."
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After 21 years as president and chief executive of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, driving everything from the development of the $67-million Raymond F. Kravis Center to a local tourist tax, Will Ray was ready for something new. When he heard Scripps' president describe his vision for a Florida campus last fall, Ray, 58, knew he had found it.
"I told him, "You have to hire me,' " Ray said recently. "And he went back to California and checked me out and did."
Ray, who has been promoted to handle all of Scripps' fundraising since coming on board in January, has been re-energized by the task. A talented musician with a doctorate in English, he nearly swoons at the brilliance of the scientists he's promoting.
"The scientists are beautiful," said Ray, who recently shot a video of some of Scripps' researchers describing their work. Nobel Prize winners, he notes, have a tough time talking in sound bites.
"The science is difficult, but the outcome - the curing of disease - is worth any cost."
Unlike his fundraising efforts for the Kravis Center, which he describes as a "palace of pleasure for the wealthy," Ray now is asking the monied class to contribute to something much more abstract: the business of science.
He frankly wonders whether donors who get their kicks from seeing their names on a flashy building - the "edifice complex" - will be as enamored with the idea of buying lab beakers.
"The campus is going to be built whether we do our work or not," he said, referring to county funds allocated for Scripps' construction. "We're raising funds to support the science after the seven-year feast of state funding."
Ray's first target will be Boston-based philanthropists who winter in Palm Beach and have given to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a Scripps-like group affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"These are people with high academic credentials who are in the habit of health care philanthropy," Ray said. "They're also less flamboyant and less social event-driven than many philanthropists here."
Next on Ray's list will be donors in Chicago, Cleveland and New York with similar interests and seasonal Palm Beach homes.
In his first months on the job, Ray said he has raised about $250,000 from residents of Palm Beach County, including the first $100,000 on a $1-million donation from Office Depot for research into childhood neurological disease. (The initial payment on a second $1-million pledge will not be received until December.)
"That was all really raised over lunch," he said.
Ray has found that donors often want to earmark their money toward research on a particular disease. If they insist on having their names on a structure, he'll be able to steer the dollars toward upgrading a lecture hall on the Scripps campus.
Which brings Ray to what he calls the "dithering and dathering" about Scripps' ultimate site. Frustrated by the distraction, he thinks the controversy reflects a lack of public understanding about the project's potential.
"I think expectations for Scripps have been misdefined in terms of land values, job creation and local economic impact," Ray said. "My long-term expectations are for an AIDS cure or new scanning device for full-body diagnosis. People are thinking too small, too short term. They don't know how big this meteorite is going to be."
Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Kris Hundley can be reached at 727 892-2996 or hundley@sptimes.com
