MEDIA CONTACT: Megan Fellman at (847) 491-3115 or fellman@northwestern.edu

November 13, 2003

Dedication Held For Life Sciences Building

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A diverse group of Northwestern University life scientists has moved into the sparkling new labs of the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe-Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Life Sciences Pavilion, which officially opened Nov. 14 with a dedication ceremony.

Located on the Evanston campus immediately south of the William A. and Gayle K. Cook Hall and adjacent to the O.T. Hogan Biological Sciences Building, the new life sciences pavilion will provide lab space for 24 to 32 principal investigators and their research groups working in the areas of molecular biology, genomics, cell biology, neurobiology, developmental biology and reproductive biology.

The new life sciences pavilion is located on Evanston's north campus, adjacent to Cook and Hogan halls.

What makes the Pancoe-ENH enterprise special is bringing exciting basic and clinical research together in one building. Thematic clusters of basic scientists are studying how individual proteins combine to form complex machines, how these machines build and maintain the cell, how cells multiply and change their identity during development from a fertilized egg to a newborn, and how the developed brain and nervous system receive, process and respond to signals from the outside world.

Mixed in with these groups investigating fundamental questions are ENH physician-scientists studying the roots of diabetes and dementia and autoimmune disease and cancer. The constant interchange of ideas and findings between these groups will blur the lines between “basic” and “clinical” research. As a result, the work of basic scientists will be better informed by clinically important problems, and clinical researchers will integrate into their experiments the latest discoveries from basic scientists. Known as translational research, this type of research brings promising new findings in biomedicine to the patient more quickly and efficiently.

“This new building exemplifies the cooperative partnerships Northwestern University is creating with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and other institutions to produce advances in the life sciences and biomedicine,” said University President Henry S. Bienen. “Northwestern is at the forefront in a number of areas of biomedical research and this new facility will enable us to continue this important work.”

Alumnus Arthur Pancoe and his wife, Gladys, made a gift of $10 million toward the construction of the life sciences pavilion.

Northwestern alumnus Arthur Pancoe and his wife Gladys gave $10 million toward the construction of the building. Through a partnership with the University, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare provided $14.5 million toward the building project, along with additional support for research on the Chicago campus. The University also has received more than $10 million in federal grants for the Pancoe-ENH building from the National Institutes of Health and the Health Resources and Services Administration.

“We are very grateful to the Pancoes and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare for their generous gifts, which will benefit research in important and growing fields,” Bienen said.

The building is being completed in two phases. Phase one, which includes construction of the entire building, the public spaces and laboratory build-out of the four floors of the north wing, is now complete and cost $61 million. The second phase, the laboratory build-out of the south wing, will be completed within the next two years and is projected to cost $15.9 million.

The pavilion will be dedicated to the memory of the Pancoes’ granddaughter, Beth Elise Pancoe, a student at Northwestern at the time of her death in 1999 from acute myelogenous leukemia. A portrait of her, to be unveiled at the building’s dedication, will hang in the lobby.

“My wife, Hap, and I could not have hoped for a more fitting memorial to our beloved granddaughter, Beth. It is our sincere hope that the work done by the talented scientists who will occupy this building will serve to advance science so that one day, people like Beth can live full and happy lives,” said Arthur Pancoe.

“I have enjoyed many years of success investing in the drug field, in part because of the analytical skills I acquired as a fellow in the graduate program in mathematics at Northwestern,” he continued. “This building has given me the opportunity to return some of that success to both my alma mater, Northwestern, and to society at large.”

The four-story, 174,000-square-foot building was designed for collaboration and interaction across disciplines; it has an unusually high number of gathering spaces and is connected by bridges to Cook and Hogan halls. All research space is self-contained and separate from faculty offices and public space.

Pancoe-ENH features state-of-the-art research laboratories that can be customized with flexible components, linear equipment hallways for common equipment such as centrifuges, freezers and liquid nitrogen tanks, a 20-seat conference room and an “interaction room” on each floor, and faculty offices with views of Lake Michigan.

Central public facilities include the 105-seat Abbott Laboratories Auditorium, which is a smart classroom with complete videoconferencing capabilities located on the first floor, and an Einstein Bagels café on the second floor with views of Lake Michigan.

Eight developmental and cell biologists from the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology currently have laboratories in the new building. Professor Richard Carthew and assistant professors Gregory Beitel, Andrew Dudley and Xiaozhong (Alec) Wang are located on the first floor; associate professor Linda Hicke and assistant professors Heike Fölsch, Carole LaBonne and Eric Weiss are on the third floor.

Three scientists from the department of neurobiology and physiology have labs on the second floor: professor Lawrence Pinto, associate professor Nelson Spruston and assistant professor Catherine Woolley. Olke Uhlenbeck, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology and an expert in biomolecular machines, occupies a lab on the fourth floor next to the ENH physician-scientists.

“We made an investment in the life sciences building on behalf of our patients and physician-scientists,” said Mark R. Neaman, president and chief executive officer of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, a three-hospital health system headquartered in Evanston. “The reality of having ENH scientists in close proximity to the discovery process in the basic sciences means improved access to new insights and breakthroughs.”

Three ENH principal investigators and their research teams will reside on the fourth floor. Joseph Bass, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, will be joined by two other researchers currently being recruited by ENH, one of whom will focus on the area of medical genetics.

“Northwestern has a culture that works across disciplines in order to tackle new research challenges and make breakthrough discoveries,” said Provost Lawrence B. Dumas. “Partnerships are an important part of this process. State-of-the-art facilities such as the Pancoe-ENH building help the University attract renowned researchers from around the world.”

The architect of the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe-Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Life Sciences Pavilion is Zimmer Gunsul Fransca Partnership of Los Angeles, who also designed the Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern.