Another Kansas University Medical Center researcher is packing his bags for Vanderbilt University.

S.K. Dey, a nationally known reproductive biology researcher, said Vanderbilt’s faculty and facilities offered him scientific opportunities that KU cannot.

“I have made my career here, and I’m grateful for that,” Dey said. “I’m going only to promote my science. That should be the commitment of any scientist.”

Billy Hudson, a nationally known kidney researcher, recently announced he, too, is headed to Vanderbilt.

“This is completely independent” of Hudson’s departure, Dey said. “It happened to be at the same time.”

Dey has been at KU for 29 years. His research has received 22 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health. In 1999, he received a prestigious 10-year MERIT (method to extend research in time) grant, which funds his work through 2009.

Dey studies the way molecules interact during reproduction. He hopes it will lead to better contraception fertility methods.

Dey, who will start this summer at Vanderbilt, said he has worked on joint projects with the university’s researchers.

“When you have peers there, it’s easier to blend and collaborate,” he said. “And they have better infrastructure.”

Dey said a lack of funds has kept the Med Center from reaching its potential. He said administrators needed to decide which areas to focus their resources instead of spreading them thin across the entire hospital.

“Kansas University Medical Center is the one and only (academic) medical center in the state of Kansas,” he said. “It should be a showcase, but we always struggle in terms of resources. … There must be some problem to generate resources leadership problems, I think.”

Deborah Powell, dean of the School of Medicine, and Michael Welch, vice chancellor for research, were not available for comment Thursday.

Janet Murguia, KU’s executive vice chancellor for university relations, said the university isn’t taking the departure of Dey and Hudson lightly.

“This is a major setback for the university and a rallying cry for the Legislature, including the governor, to make sure higher education funding, including investments in research, are a priority,” she said.

She said the researchers’ projects are worth a greater investment from the state.

“There’s a real economic return to the state,” she said. “Drs. S.K. Dey and Billy Hudson were leveraging a lot of NIH dollars that no longer will be coming to Kansas.”