The Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center encourages
collaboration because each floor has a designated research focus.
Built to cure
At KU’s new Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center, the building itself facilitates life-saving research.
Every day at the Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center, more than 300 researchers and staff look for ways to treat, cure or prevent serious diseases and medical conditions. And the building itself, which opened in January 2007 in Kansas City, Kan., helps them do it.
At the corner of 39th Street and Rainbow Boulevard, the center stands tall and filled with light. It’s the newest addition to the KU Medical Center complex, symbolizing the Medical Center’s commitment to establishing itself as a world-class research center.
Paul Terranova, the Medical Center’s vice chancellor for research, said the life sciences innovation center includes established programs that draw significant grant funding and also houses emerging programs.
The center’s exceptional laboratory spaces and technology have enhanced recruitment efforts. Terranova estimated more than a third of the researchers are new. Moreover, the center was designed to increase communication among researchers by designating a separate research focus for each floor.
“We thought if we had people together who could talk to each other, share research, share ideas, we could develop a certain degree of synergy so that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts,” Terranova said.
Lisa Stehno-Bittel, scientific director of the Diabetes Institute, appreciates how the life sciences center’s design helps researchers work together. “There is so much more collaboration among the groups here,” she said. “Just running into each other in the hall, you share ideas. You have a problem, and you get it fixed in the hallway at the water cooler.”
The new building also symbolizes a partnership among the state of Kansas, the Medical Center and private philanthropy. Funding of the $57-million, 205,000-square-foot facility resulted from an agreement between the state and the Medical Center. In addition, the Hall Family Foundation of Kansas City, Mo., donated $27 million for state-of-the-art laboratory equipment.
Synergy at work
Fourth floor: Liver research — Researchers work toward treatment and prevention of diseases such as alcoholic hepatitis, gallstones, liver cancer and diabetes.
Third floor: Reproductive sciences — Investigators study reproductive function and pregnancy, and search for causes and treatments for diseases that cause infertility and ovarian cancer.
Second floor: Neurosciences — Researchers study the nervous system, aiming at areas such as diabetes, disorders affecting hearing and balance, and female pain syndromes associated with estrogen (including migraine and fibromyalgia).
First floor: Proteomics — Investigators study proteins that make up the body and regulate cell function. Their work relates to various diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Ground floor: Diabetes Institute — Researchers seek treatments and cures, and outpatients learn about nutrition and exercise in preventing and managing diabetes.
Research cores: Twelve specialized laboratories provide the latest technology to all Medical Center researchers and other area research institutions.