April 28, 2005

Ushering in a new era in medical research

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, government leaders join Northwestern community in opening doors of state-of-the-art facility at Feinberg School of Medicine

The Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of Northwestern University was dedicated April 21, opening the doors of a new state-of-the-art research and teaching facility at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

Taking part in the ceremony on the Chicago campus were:

• Ann Lurie, wife of the late Robert H. Lurie and a University trustee

• The Honorable Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago

• University Board of Trustees Chair Patrick G. Ryan and his wife, Shirley, who are both Northwestern alumni

• Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen

• Lewis Landsberg, M.D., dean of the Feinberg School and vice president for medical affairs

• Gary Mecklenburg, president and chief executive officer, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare

• Steven T. Rosen, M.D., director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and Genevieve E. Teuton Professor of Medicine

• Alderman Burton F. Natarus, 42nd Ward, Chicago

The Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center is named in honor of the late businessman Robert H. Lurie. Major funding includes a $40 million gift from Ann Lurie; an investment of $25 million by Northwestern Memorial Hospital; a $30 million grant from the State of Illinois; and a significant gift from Patrick and Shirley Ryan. Private and public support for the building now exceeds $160 million.

“We very much appreciate the extraordinary support of Ann Lurie and Pat and Shirley Ryan,” said President Henry S. Bienen. “Their leadership and vision have made possible this important step in Northwest-ern’s research efforts.”

Other major building benefactors include the Avon Foundation; Fred Drucker and A. Norman Drucker; filmmaker and director John Hughes and his wife, Nancy; and Eleanor R. Baldwin.

The facility at the southeast corner of Superior Street and Fairbanks Court is designed to allow basic and clinical researchers to collaborate across disciplines, creating the potential for novel solutions to scientific challenges, said Dr. Landsberg.

“The Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center will provide researchers with exceptional resources to transfer pioneering medical research from the laboratory to clinical applications for patients,“ said Dr. Landsberg. “The convergence of talent and advanced equipment in this facility will lead to innovative discoveries, ushering in a new era of medical research.”

Space in the 12-story Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center will be devoted to research on cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, bionanotechnology, infectious diseases, regenerative medicine and genetics.

The building will include researchers from the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University (floors 3, 4 and 5); cancer genetics (floor 6); the Center for Genetic Medicine (floor 7); cell and molecular approaches to neuroscience (floor 8); infectious disease (floor 9); regenerative medicine (floor 10); and the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine (floor 11). All floors are occupied except for six and eight, both of which will be completed in 2006.

Each floor of the 200,000 net square-foot building contains 12 laboratories, each with space for a principal investigator and five additional researchers. When completed, the building will house approximately 1,000 researchers, technicians, post-doctoral students, lab assistants and staff, adding to the Feinberg School’s more than 7,100 faculty, students and staff.

The education space on the first floor of the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center will serve first-year medical students. The first floor of the building has 255-seat and 110-seat auditoriums, 75-seat and 45-seat seminar rooms, a food court with seating for 120 people, a lobby and lounge space.

A second-floor walkway on the south side of the building will connect the center by skybridges to the McGaw Pavilion to the west, the Jesse Brown Veterans Administration Medical Center to the south and Prentice Women’s Hospital to the east.

Completion of The Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center, coupled with new research space in the McGaw Pavilion at the northeast corner of Fairbanks Court and Huron Street, will increase the Feinberg School’s research space by 75 percent.

The Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center, built on the site of the former Jennings and Passavant Pavilions of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, is the first new research building on the Chicago campus since 1991, when the University opened the Tarry Research and Education Building.

Sponsored research at Feinberg has grown from $41,957,895 in 1991 to $184,846,460 in 2004.