Skip to Navigation
University of Pittsburgh
Print This Page Print this pages

October 13, 2005

University opens Biomedical Science Tower 3

It wasn’t merely the building that was new at the Oct. 6 opening of the Biomedical Science Tower (BST) 3.

Members of two new units were among the first of 50 groups of researchers who will eventually be housed in the $250 million building at Fifth Avenue and Darragh Street: Employees of the Department of Structural Biology, newly established within the School of Medicine, and the School of Pharmacy’s new Drug Discovery Institute are among about 100 people moving in during the project’s first phase.

Of the 500 employees who will be based in BST3 when all three phases of construction are complete next year, about half will be new to the University. In addition to being a home for new science research, the facility is expected to contribute to the region’s economy.

“The single brightest spot in terms of job growth has been the education and health services sectors,” said Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg in his opening comments Oct. 7. “In that sector, university research has been a key driver of growth in that economy,” he said, noting that the University’s research programs directly and indirectly support 18,000 local jobs.

The 10-story building’s open space design is being touted as a forward-looking way to permit researchers of various disciplines to work together on increasingly complex research initiatives.

“This building is designed to promote interaction and collaboration among faculty,” said Arthur S. Levine, senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine.

“Most floors house programs, not departments,” Levine said, adding that chemists may be working alongside biologists and that “virtually all papers will be authored by people from three, four or five disciplines.” In addition, many researchers are cross-trained in multiple disciplines.

“This model quite simply is the future of biomedical science,” Levine said. “I believe the research conducted in this building will be nothing short of transformational,” he said.

The Department of Structural Biology, which will occupy 32,000 square feet in BST3’s basement and on floors 1 and 2, is setting up its X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy laboratories where the molecular structure of proteins and nucleic acids will be studied.

Three of six NMR spectrometers worth a total of $12 million already are in place in the department’s two-story-high basement NMR laboratory.

The department temporarily will share portions of its second-floor lab space with the Drug Discovery Institute while DDI’s permanent space on the 10th floor is completed. The institute will focus on developing drugs for “orphan” diseases that pharmaceutical companies ignore.

Phase 2, the interior completion of BST3’s upper floors, is expected to be finished by spring, said Michelle S. Broido, associate vice chancellor for Biomedical Research.

BST3 also will house the Department of Neurology’s Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, the Center for the Neural Basis for Cognition, the Department of Computational Biology, the School of Medicine’s Department of Neurobiology, the Center for Vaccine Research in Biodefense and Emerging Infections, the Proteomics Core Laboratory, developmental biology programs and researchers from the School of Engineering’s Department of Bioengineering.

The development of a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory follows in Phase 3, to be completed next summer, Broido said. The RBL, one of nine federally funded labs being established nationwide, will conduct experimental research in biodefense.

—Kimberly K. Barlow

Filed under: Feature,Volume 38 Issue 4

Leave a Reply