Biomedical

Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine will begin construction in spring of 2008 on a $90 million medical school campus in Grand Rapids. The 180,000-sf facility will be called the Secchia Center and will partner with institutions including Spectrum Health, the Van Andel Institute, and Saint Mary's Health Care. Comprised of seven medical school floors and a five-story parking garage, the center will feature an atrium connecting floors one through four and a smaller atrium on floors five and six.

After years of research, development and laboratory testing, SANYO has introduced the MCO-80IC Reach-In CO2 Incubator. It is both easy to use and designed specifically for critical applications in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical investigation. Safe for even the most demanding of cell culture protocols, the SANYO MCO-80IC offers significant economic benefits by avoiding costly interruptions for decontamination, improving cell culture growth and expression under stable, repeatable conditions, and minimizing the potential for loss due to contamination.

Emory Healthcare and Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) formed a partnership, the Alliance for Predictive and Personalized Health, in December of 2007. Initiated by Dr. Fred Sanfilippo, the chairman of Emory Healthcare and the former head of OSUMC, the initiative aims to enhance health care at the patient level with genetic breakthroughs and information technology improvements.

Saint Louis University dedicated the $82 million Edward A. Doisy Research Center in St. Louis, Mo., on December 7, 2007. Designed by Cannon Design, the 206,000-sf, 10-story glass and steel tower is the centerpiece of the University’s multi-million dollar program to accelerate its steady growth in funded basic medical science research and clinical translational research. The state-of-the-art facility features many open labs to foster exploration, research, and communication of information and ideas among the next generation of medical leaders.

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) is planning to construct a biomedical research facility in London adjacent to the British Library. Created by a £500 million partnership with the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, The Wellcome Trust, and University College London, the center will accommodate 1,500 staff and is slated for completion in 2013.

Texas Tech Health Sciences Center opened the $48 million Medical Education Building II in El Paso in December of 2007. Part of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, the 125,000-sf facility is the second in a planned three-building campus. The four story facility houses classrooms, teaching labs, computer simulation labs with manikins, a digital library, and administrative offices.

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, a developer of adult stem cell technologies, began constructing an animal research facility at its headquarters in Petach-Tikvah, Israel in late 2007. Housing laboratories for preclinical therapeutics research, the vivarium and cleanroom facility will be built to meet National Institutes of Health and National Research Council guidelines.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital dedicated the $134 million Chili's Care Center in Memphis in November of 2007. The seven-story, 340,000-sf facility houses an MRI and the only cyclotron dedicated to childhood cancer research. The facility features expanded programs for diagnostic imaging and bone marrow transplants; research laboratories; the department of radiation oncology; and the brain tumor program. The fourth floor of the building is unoccupied to accommodate future growth. Complete occupancy is slated for spring of 2008.

Dalhousie University, in partnership with Capital Health and the IWK Health Centre, is planning to construct the $42 million Life Sciences Research Institute (LSRI) in Halifax. Designed by Halifax-based WHW Architects, the 115,000-sf, five-story LSRI will house post-incubator research projects and laboratory space for tenants, two floors of labs for the Brain Repair Centre, and a CL2/APL2 Integrated Animal Care Facility (IACF) for non-severe biological agent research on the fifth floor.

Purdue University completed the 26,000-sf LakeView Technology Center in Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Ind. in late October of 2007. The facility houses the 7,800-sf InnerVision West magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) center with a 3-Tesla scanner for research and patient care. 8,300-sf of space at the LakeView Technology Center is occupied by tenant Simulex, Inc; the building also houses a 5,500-sf restaurant and a 1,500-sf coffee shop. An additional 10,000-sf of office or laboratory space for second-stage technology companies is available.

Thomas Jefferson University dedicated the 129,000-sf Dorrance H. Hamilton Building in Philadelphia on October 19, 2007. The six-story interdisciplinary health instruction facility will accommodate integrated education in nursing, medical, physical, and occupational therapy. The $60 million project includes classrooms, a 300-seat auditorium, a 60,000-sf plaza, and a 252-space underground parking garage. The two-floor Rector Clinical Skills Center features virtual diagnostic and surgical suites with mechanical patients and an anesthesia lab.

Indiana University Bloomington dedicated Simon Hall, known as Multidisciplinary Science Building I, on October 16, 2007. The $55.7 million, 141,084-gsf project features modular, flexible laboratories for interdisciplinary research. Housing biologists, chemists, physicists, and geneticists engaged in bioscience and genomics research, the facility also houses offices and conference space for the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science and the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

Rutgers University broke ground on the $150 million Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick on October 23, 2007. Slated for completion in 2010, the Institute is a joint venture between the University, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and the State of New Jersey. Supporting basic and translational research, clinical trials, and outpatient treatment, the 160,000-sf center will be located on five floors in an 18-story tower adjacent to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and across from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

The 85,600-square-foot Arizona Biomedical Collaborative opened in Phoenix on Oct. 15, 2007. The $29.6 facility is a joint venture of Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. The first two floors will accommodate Arizona State University's department of biomedical informatics, with the top two floors housing laboratory space for the University of Arizona’s Phoenix medical school.

The National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Research Resources has awarded the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center a $34-million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) to establish the North and Central Texas Clinical and Translational Science Initiative (NCTCTSI).