Opening a new world of research
McGill University boasts a long history of collaboration between its faculties, but few as deep and as important as the one between Medicine and Science. From the days of Sir William Osler, who embraced all disciplines in his quest for medical knowledge, to Wilder Penfield, whose vision included the creation of an institute where clinicians and scientists from different faculties and departments would work side by side, McGill has long been at the forefront of collaborative research. The University is now taking this deeply rooted research culture a giant step further with the McGill University Life Sciences Complex, which will foster interdisciplinary research and bring some of the world’s key scientific talent under one roof.
The Life Sciences Complex, a 340,000-square-foot system of buildings, will house over a dozen core facilities expressly designed to encourage crossdisciplinary research and interaction. The complex is arranged to allow the free-flow of information between researchers and scientists working in diverse fields. The new facilities will be home to 60 principal investigators and 600 researchers, with 50 per cent of floor space dedicated to laboratories. These scientists will join over 2,000 researchers, technical personnel, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the renovated Stewart and McIntyre buildings. With a total budget of $100- million in construction and equipment costs, the complex represents one of the most important capital projects ever undertaken by McGill.
The Life Sciences Complex encompasses the existing McIntyre Medical Sciences Building and the Stewart Biological Sciences Building — both of which are undergoing additional renovations and upgrades and integrates two new, state-of-the-art facilities: the Francesco Bellini Life Sciences Building and the Cancer Research Building. “Integrating the existing McIntyre and Stewart buildings with the Cancer and Bellini buildings eliminates the physical separation of researchers, and helps the University remain at the forefront of biomedical research,” explained Richard Levin, Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and Dean of Medicine.
McGill Life Science Complex researchers will have the necessary working environment to move from molecule discovery to drug delivery, taking their science from the bench to the bedside. Research projects at the complex will focus on five biomedical fields: Cancer, Complex Traits, Cell Information Systems, Chemical Biology and Developmental Biology.
“The Life Sciences Building is a joint venture in the truest and broadest sense of the term,” said Martin Grant, Dean of the Faculty of Science. “It is an undertaking which unites the best McGill has to offer under one roof; science and medicine and pure research all pulling together for the same cause.”
The Francesco Bellini Life Sciences Building— named for Dr. Francesco Bellini, whose company, BioChem Pharma, marketed 3TC, the renowned anti-HIV compound drug developed at McGill—will accommodate scientists from biology, biochemistry and physiology, as well as the Centre for the Study of Host Resistance. The facility will be equipped with state-of-the-art bioinformatics and chemistry laboratories, instrumentation rooms and modern imaging laboratories. The Cancer Research Building will house world-renowned researchers from both the McGill Cancer Centre and the Molecular Oncology Group, following a fusion between the two under a new name: the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Centre. The Cancer Research Building will also house the Quebec Transgenic Research Network. This crossfertilization will allow McGill to accelerate cancer research and to recruit leading researchers from around the world.
The complex, however, is not just about bricks and mortar, it is about people— young scientists who will receive their training in the best facilities imaginable and work with the world’s top scientists. The best and the brightest young graduate students and post-docs from around the world have already begun to arrive because of the opportunities created by the multidisciplinary aspect of the new facilities. For McGill University and the entire world, a new world of research has indeed arrived.