This month marks 10 years since the creation of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS), which transferred to Rutgers most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s assets, valued at more than $895.5 million. This included New Jersey Medical School, New Jersey Dental School and School of Nursing in Newark, and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, among others.
The goal of this integration was multifaceted. Rutgers long had sought a medical school to help it become a comprehensive public research university that was on par with peers like the University of Michigan. Then-Gov. Chris Christie wanted to create economic opportunities and strengthen New Jersey’s health care system in the process.
In the decade since RBHS was born, the results have exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts. In 2012, Rutgers was ranked No. 25 on U.S. News and World Report’s list of public U.S. colleges. Today, we’re No. 19, tied with the University of Maryland and Florida State (which both have medical schools). As we’ve climbed in the rankings, students have taken notice. This year, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School received 5,800 applications, an 83% increase from 2012. The New Jersey Medical School received 5,880 applications in 2023, a 70% jump from 2012.
New research support also has found its way to Rutgers. Today, we’re a research powerhouse, with expenditures topping $730 million annually. In 2022, Rutgers faculty generated $872.8 million in research grants and sponsored programs. More than half of that was RBHS-related research. RBHS has also brought $3.6 billion in new extramural awards into Rutgers in the last decade.
A crowning achievement — and affirmation of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers integration — was the award in 2019 of a $29 million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health to help translate clinical research into patient care and treatments.
The ongoing partnership between Rutgers Health with RWJBarnabas Health has continued to produce the most comprehensive academic health system in the state. The longstanding affiliation with University Hospital in Newark and other partnerships have allowed Rutgers Health to continue to strive toward its mission of equitable health care access and outcomes for all New Jerseyans. With programs like these, Rutgers is a complete “bench-to-bedside-to-community” institution, bringing discoveries in the lab directly to patients statewide.
These efforts are having a direct impact on the state’s economy, too. Before the creation of RBHS, new pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies were rarely drawn to New Jersey, opting instead for states such as California or Massachusetts to be close to Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford. Today, companies are coming to New Jersey because of Rutgers and RBHS. In 2012, the life sciences industry contributed an estimated $33.5 billion to the state’s gross domestic product. Today, it’s well over $100 billion.
RBHS’s value to the state is expected only to increase. A public-private biomedical center being built in downtown New Brunswick, which will house RWJMS and a Rutgers translational research facility, will further cement these connections and help facilitate the spinout of new therapeutics.
Of course, as the pandemic demonstrated, RBHS is a clinical, educational, and research innovator for today’s health care challenges as well.
Three years ago, little was known about the coronavirus. For example, epidemiologists, including myself, didn’t know if personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves were effective at protecting health workers against the virus. To find out, RBHS launched the world’s first COVID-19 cohort study of health care workers, which ended up showing that PPEs were working.
Our contributions didn’t stop there. A team of Rutgers researchers created the first FDA-approved rapid test for COVID-19, and a different team developed the first saliva test for COVID-19. When Johnson & Johnson sought participants for its Phase 3 vaccine trials, RBHS stepped in, enrolling more people than almost any other organization in the world. And when the virus pushed health care workers to the brink of exhaustion, we graduated medical, nursing, and pharmacy students early so they could help augment labor shortages in the state.
We provided dormitory space to our healthcare workers, so they didn’t need to return home and possibly endanger their families. And our School of Public Health also trained 2000 contact tracers for the state’s health department.
Because of RBHS, Rutgers is now a complete university — both from a health education standpoint and because of our ability to translate research into results. While our work isn’t done, our success during COVID-19 demonstrates just how far we’ve come.
The legislation that created RBHS a decade ago predicted big things for our state’s flagship university. “Having medical schools will attract top-flight researchers and thus research grants to Rutgers,” the legislation foresaw. “The addition of medical schools to Rutgers will also increase interdisciplinary opportunities among the academic departments of the school.”
On these, and so many other measures, RBHS is delivering – for Rutgers, for the state and for our patients.
Brian L. Strom is chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) and the executive vice president for health affairs at Rutgers University.