ARKANSAS BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE

ABI
PAST,
PRESENT, AND FUTURE
A Conversation with Donald R. Bobbitt, PhD
President, University of Arkansas System
Chairman of the Board of Directors,
Arkansas Biosciences Institute
After earning a doctorate in chemistry
from Iowa State University in 1985,
Donald R. Bobbitt began his academic
career as an assistant professor in the
department of chemistry and biochemistry
at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville,
where he soon began to receive recognition
for both his research and his teaching.
His innovative work in bio-analytical chemistry received wide
funding support from national corporations and organizations, and he
was elected a Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. A
firm believer in mentorship and the importance of science education,
Bobbitt was awarded the University of Arkansas’ Alumni Association
Award in Teaching, the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award, and,
for five consecutive years, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
Teacher-Scholar Fellowship.
In 2003, he was named Dean of the J. William Fulbright College
of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, a role he filled
until 2008, when he became Provost and Vice President for Academic
Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington. He returned to
Arkansas to serve as President of the University of Arkansas System in
November of 2011.
President Bobbitt has been a crucial part of ABI since its inception,
first as a campus director for ABI at the University of Arkansas,
Fayetteville, from 2001-2008 and now as chairman of the ABI Board
of Directors. On the occasion of our 15 th anniversary, we sat down
with him to reflect on the past, present, and future of the Arkansas
Biosciences Institute and its impact on the state as a whole.
Q: It’s the fifteenth anniversary of the Arkansas Biosciences
Institute, and you were there at the very beginning. What were
those early days like, when the Tobacco Settlement Act was
passed and ABI was formed?
A: Well, let me give you a very short answer to that question. You
know, I’m an experimentalist by training. And it’s very rare when
we plan an experiment out, and it goes just as we planned. However,
ABI has moved in almost the exact direction we had hoped it
would. The original idea was that a little bit of investment at the
front end can help individual researchers get over the hump, get
the preliminary data they need to bring in much larger quantities
of money to address very important questions in the biomedical
health area. And it has worked beautifully.
Now if you just stand back for a second and think about this, it
is not necessarily within the DNA of those of us in the sciences to
collaborate and share, because we’re used to working independently—
not that we’re adverse to it, it’s just not part of the normal way. This
required five pretty distinct entities to come together and work
collaboratively for the greater good of the Arkansas Biosciences
Institute, and the greater good of the state.
And frankly, when I came back from Texas to speak at one of the
ABI meetings, it was surprising to me that it was still going; a lot of
times, these kinds of things often collapse under their own weight,
because future generations don’t necessarily want to share. But the
truth of the matter is that the original mindset, that we’re going to hold
hands and move forward together—that we’re going to give and take
for the betterment of the state, and for the betterment of ABI—has
persisted for all 15 years.
Q: What are your thoughts on how Arkansas has handled
its share of the Tobacco Settlement funds, particularly in
comparison with other states?
A: So many times, Arkansas is 48 th or 49 th on the kinds of lists where
you don’t want to be 48 th or 49 th . But I remember just a few years after
we had ABI up and running, it was already doing very productive
things, and when the Washington Post looked at the states that had
used the tobacco funds most progressively, Arkansas was in the top
five. And that’s remarkable.
So many states just took that money and folded it in the budget,
where it got lost. But the key is that this state has kept it sequestered for
specific purposes, and the state has not deviated from those purposes.
It’s a remarkable example, I think, of when government works right.
Q: Why is it important to have a research-focused institute like
ABI as one of the components of the Arkansas Master Tobacco
Settlement?
A: For many reasons, and particularly in terms of its proportionate
economic impact on the state compared to the other components. ABI
is actually predicated on the concept of investment. It’s not intended to
be the final or continuous funding source for any activity or particular
line of investigation, but rather to launch something. The research also
needs to be peer-reviewed, meaning that other scientists also have to
say, “This is very good, and it really will have some intrinsic and longlasting
benefit for health in the state of Arkansas and nationally.”
Another aspect of that is that infrastructure in modern high
quality science is critically important. So part of ABI’s funding goes
to pay for infrastructure, for things like sophisticated instruments
that are required in order to compete with states like California and
Massachusetts, for example.
And when you look at the return on funds, which come in the
form of the research grants that have been garnered by the individuals
who receive ABI funding, return on investment to the state has been
absolutely phenomenal.
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ARKANSAS BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE • 2016 ANNUAL REPORT