Building

• Cost: $74.4 million
• Size: 185,000 square feet
• Architect: Ventura, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.
• The Biomedical and Biological Sciences Research Building is a steel frame structure with a total of four floors of “open-format” laboratory space, a basement dedicated to house animal specimens and a penthouse to handle building services.
• The “open-format” structure encourages collaborative research and accommodates the expansion and contraction of research groups.The “open-format” structure is used by many nationally prominent universities and was featured in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (L. Gutterman, “Space Odyssey”, 12/10/2004).
• Each floor also provides conference rooms, computer labs and specialized rooms for sample storage, low-temperature experiments, protein analysis, cell culture work and equipment.
• The basement houses an animal diagnostic facility and has an automatic waste-delivery system.
• The fourth floor is currently “shelled” space, but the University has received a $3.7 million dollar grant from the National Center for Research Resources to help outfit this floor for biomedical research.

People

The Biomedical and Biological Sciences Research Building, when fully operational, will house 350-400 faculty, staff and students.

• The first and part of the second floor will house the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry chaired by Louis Hersh. Hersh provided the leadership that has propelled the department to national prominence. It now ranks 20th in funding from the National Institutes of Health among all biochemistry departments at public universities. One measure of the department’s rise to national prominence was the recent award of a $10 million dollar Center of Biomedical Research Excellent (COBRE) grant from the National Institutes of Health.

  Quote from Hersh: “We need more research buildings like this one if we are to continue to attract the talented scientists whom I've been fortunate enough to hire.”

• Approximately one-third of the second floor will house the Institute for Molecular Medicine directed by Senior Associate Dean William Balke. Balke holds an appointment in the Department of Internal Medicine in the College of Medicine. He is a world-renowned cardiologist who was recruited within the past year from the University of Maryland along with a team of five other faculty.

  Quote from Balke: “The availability of this magnificent space in combination with the leadership of Dean Perman and Executive Vice President Karpf was clearly a factor in my decision to relocate. We are very excited about the future prospects for our program in Kentucky.”

• About two-thirds of the third floor will house the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC) directed by Edward Hall. Hall holds an appointment as a Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology in the College of Medicine. He is a distinguished researcher recruited from Pfizer Inc. to lead this research effort, and within a few short years, has hired numerous faculty. His team has received a 700 percent increase in research funding in the first year of Hall’s appointment. Hall’s industrial experience also will be invaluable to the Center’s efforts to seek practical solutions to problems in traumatic spinal cord and brain injury.

  Quote from Hall: “My father experienced a neurological injury in his life that led me into a career in science, and my interest in building this Center is both professional and personal. The creation and success of the Center is the direct result of the investment made by the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Trust and the personal sponsorship by Senator Tim Shaughnessy, to whom the University and Center are particularly grateful.”

• About one-third of the third floor will house the Drug Abuse Treatment Research Program directed by Linda Dwoskin. Dwoskin holds an appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy and is a national leader in understanding the molecular events associated with drug abuse and the development of new treatment regimens for patients.

  Quote from Dwoskin: “My research crosses various disciplinary boundaries. I am very interested in assembling an interdisciplinary team that can work together to seek practical solutions to difficult problems.”

Research Programs

• The first and two-thirds of the second floor will house the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. The Department’s research interests span

the structure and function of all important classes of biomolecules. Specific research programs encompass research on the underlying biochemical mechanisms of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, atherosclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases.

• About one-third of second floor will house the Institute for Molecular Medicine. The Institute’s research interests include the search for human disease-linked genes and their products; the better defining of the roles of these genes in cell signaling and their malfunction in disease; and the translation of this knowledge into clinical research and the practice of medicine with the development of new and novel strategies for the detection, prevention, intervention and possibly reversal of some important human diseases.

• About two-thirds of the third floor will house the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center. The Center’s research interests involve collaborative studies on injuries to the spinal cord and brain that result in paralysis or other loss of neurologic function. The Center will identify biomarkers that can be used to track post-traumatic pathophysiology and the effects of neuroprotective and neurorestorative treatments; help identify innovative clinical trial methodologies and therapeutic endpoints; improve the use of rehabilitation strategies to maximize treatment effects; and translate research results to minimize damage, promote repair mechanisms and enhance regeneration following spinal cord or brain injury.
  
• About one-third of the third floor will house the Drug Abuse Treatment Research Program. The Center’s research interests involve the regulation of neurotransmitters like dopamine and the development of novel treatments for diseases involving dopamine pathophysiology such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia as well as drug and alcohol abuse. The Program will examine the role of genetics and environmental factors as determinants of responsiveness to drugs of abuse and as determinants of abuse liability.

Back to BBSRB Dedication release