Summary

Launched in 2003, BioMed 21 creates a multidisciplinary and translational-research imperative for basic scientists and clinician-researchers from many different medical disciplines.

BioMed 21 reorganizes the life sciences at Washington University to address the biggest questions about disease: their origins, how they affect us and how we can cure them. It will reshape University culture to rapidly convert the knowledge of the genetic blueprint of human beings into effective, individualized treatments.

To successfully make those discoveries and develop those therapies, BioMed 21 advances on many fronts:

• It aims to collect and dedicate resources, including NIH support and gifts from friends and supporters. Recent grants include:
• $50 million grant to enhance clinical and translational research
• $14 million in two grants for neuroscience research
• $16 million grant for nanomedicine research
• It defines new spaces to house promising research and educational programs, including:
• the construction of 240,000 square feet of new research space in the new BJC Institute of Health at Washington University in the center of the medical campus
• the new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, an important teaching component of BioMed 21
• a 40,000-gross-square-foot facility designed to spur development of mouse models for human diseases
• a 16,000-square-foot data center to meet the massive computing needs of the Genome Sequencing Center
• 15,000 square feet of space added to the previously established Center for Genome Sciences to support new investigators
• It establishes five new Interdisciplinary Research Centers to be housed in the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University:
• Center for Cancer Genomics
• Center for the Investigation of Membrane Excitability Disorders
• Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research
• Hope Center Program on Protein Folding and Neurodegeneration
• Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease

Learn more about BioMed 21