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MUSC's Children's Research Institute breaks ground Ground-breaking ceremonies for the Children’s Research Institute last week were all about children. About their health. About research into root causes of children's diseases.    Children assist in the ground-breaking ceremonies. And they were about a degree of health care agility that can be achieved when biomedical scientists work only a few hundred yards away from clinicians who employ their therapies.   It was also the vision of MUSC Department of Pediatrics chairman Charles Darby, M.D., that was celebrated. He was presented with South Carolina's highest honor, the Order of the Palmetto, presented by Gov. James Hodges. It was also announced that Darby was selected to receive the South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Career Achievement Award for Excellence in Pediatrics.   Dr. Charles Darby “Fifteen years ago, he had a vision to build a department of excellence,” said W. John Langley, M.D., president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who announced the academy’s award. “Seven years ago he had another vision to build a research center, and we are here today to turn ground.”   When MUSC's Children's Research Institute opens in 2004, the 121,000 square-foot facility will be the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the Carolinas. The building will give researchers sorely needed and dedicated space to discover the causes and cures of illness and disease that continue to afflict children in alarming numbers—among them, cancer, congenital heart disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.   “You don't get the good people to practice medicine if you don't provide them adequate research,” Langley said. “And we are blessed in Charleston with a superb pediatric faculty.”   An architect's model shows the research center as it will look when completed. Dave Kreber, the parent of a youngster whose childhood leukemia was conquered at the Children's Hospital, expressed his and his wife’s wish: “Our wish for every other family that walks through those doors on the other side of campus is that research here will give them the hope that we had then.”   “With the recent selection of the MUSC Children's Hospital as one of the 10 best in the country, the Medical University is now established as a leader nationally in children's health,” said MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., in his address at the ceremony. “To remain at the forefront, we must expand our research capacity, and the groundbreaking for the Children's Research Institute declares our intent to meet that challenge.   “We have made extraordinary progress under Dr. Charles Darby, chairman of the Department of Pediatrics,” Greenberg said. “He has built a premier department and the Children's Research Institute is the capstone to his vision for improving the health of South Carolina’s children.”   Lock the doors and dig deep. Linda Gadson ‘encourages’ ground-breaking participants to raise $16 million for the Children's Research Institute. With her are from left: Rev. David B. Thompson, retired bishop of Charleston, Dr. Charles Darby, holding Gadson's granddaughter, and Gov. Jim Hodges. The MUSC Children’s Hospital was completed in 1987. It provides services in all of the pediatric sub-specialties and has been named by Child Magazine as one of the top 10 pediatric facilities in the country. Greenberg said that having a dedicated research facility will strengthen the hospital's clinical services in several ways: It will help attract and retain the country’s top pediatricians.  It will enable the Children’s Hospital to compete more effectively for grants, generating more funds for pediatric research. It means that the hospital will be able to offer patients the latest treatments. The institute will cost an estimated $36 million to build. Already, the university has secured $20 million in state bonds; the remaining $16 million will need to be raised through philanthropic gifts.