U-M Biomedical Research to Gain New Facility

The U-M Board of Regents has approved a striking architectural design emphasizing light and curves for the Medical School’s new $220-million Biomedical Science Research Building. The south wall of the building is a curved, glass ribbon of office space, which is separated from the terra cotta- and metal-clad laboratory areas by a sky-lit atrium.

Comprised of more than 470,000 square feet, the BSRB will be the largest research facility on campus, covering an entire city block. Faculty working on similar projects will find it easier to work together in the building’s 240 laboratory modules, because workspace will be flexible, organized around scientific themes rather than the traditional department-based model.

“The Medical School recognizes that scientific collaboration and innovation are essential to making significant advances in biomedical research,” says Allen Lichter, M.D., dean of the U-M Medical School. “The building’s unique design will foster multidisciplinary collaborations and create conditions for accelerated visionary research and training, which we hope will profoundly impact science and clinical care.”

According to Lichter, programmatic research themes likely to be located in the new BSRB will include:

• Geriatrics and biogerontology — cellular and molecular biology of aging and late life
• Immunology — basic, translational and clinical investigations of how the immune system defends against viruses, bacteria and other pathogens
• Cardiovascular science — genetics, developmental biology and design of treatment strategies for the heart and its blood vessels
• Cellular and molecular therapeutics — integration of the disciplines of genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology and cell biology at the cellular and molecular levels for a better understanding of health and disease
• Organogenesis — unraveling the basic mechanisms by which organs and tissues are formed and maintained in order to correct acquired and genetic human diseases
• Neuroscience — understanding the fundamental biology of brain cells, functions of the brain, and the impact of genetic variations for improved treatment of brain disorders

Its focus on collaborative, multidisciplinary research and its location on the medical campus will make the BSRB an important hub in the development of the U-M Life Sciences Initiative. The Initiative is a campus-wide effort to coordinate and expand research and teaching in all areas of study that are influenced by the life sciences.
In the six-level building, approximately 263,000 square feet will be designed for wet research laboratories, laboratory support space, offices, interaction space and a 300-seat, below-ground-level auditorium.

The BSRB, scheduled for occupancy in 2005, will be located across Huron Street from the U-M’s Palmer Drive Development, which includes the new U-M Life Sciences Institute.

—Mary Beth Reilly

For additional construction details about the BSRB, visit:
www.plantext.bf.umich.edu

To take a virtual tour through the new building, go to:
www.med.umich.edu/medschool/video/index.html