A central spiral staircase drenched in sunlight connects two buildings that were unveiled Thursday, the UCLA Biomedical Sciences Research Building and Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center.
The staircase is just one manifestation of the many structural designs put in place to foster collaborations between different departments and disciplines of the building to research musculoskeletal diseases and a variety of other sciences.
Though research investigators have already moved into and begun working in the new buildings, the joint buildings were only officially dedicated Thursday.
The idea was first conceived more than eight years ago with the purpose of bringing together the best researchers from multiple disciplines such as microbiology; immunology; biological chemistry; molecular, cell and developmental biology; AIDS research and stem cell research, said James Luck Jr., president, chief executive officer and medical director of Orthopaedic Hospital.
“The building is the first major realization of the alliance between Orthopaedic Hospital and UCLA,” Luck said. “The mission of the hospital is to provide care for children with crippling diseases and to advance care for all patients’ musculoskeletal disorders through medical education and research.”
The research building’s chief purpose is to promote interdisciplinary interactions, which is in line with the chancellor’s goals for the year.
“This innovative addition to our campus will help us maximize UCLA’s strength as an interdisciplinary community of scholars in which collaboration is key to comprehensively addressing tough questions,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block in a statement.
The two buildings will be so closely connected that they can practically be considered one, said Alan Robinson, associate vice chancellor of medical sciences and executive associate dean of the UCLA School of Medicine.
The Biomedical Sciences Research Building will involve basic research of the various sciences, while the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center includes clinical and translational research, which is the application of the basic research to bedside treatment.
The work of those in the two buildings will be closely related, and the physical structure reflects that. In addition to the staircase connecting the two buildings, multiple other features of the building promote communication between researchers.
The buildings were designed to have few but large open laboratories, with four labs on each floor, that would be shared by many departments to encourage researchers to work together across disciplines, Robinson said.
Lab space, equipment and services will all be shared, creating a dynamic working atmosphere.
“Interaction among the faculty will just automatically occur,” he said. “Everyone was extremely impressed with the functionality of the building.”
Even the location in the Court of Sciences lends itself to interdisciplinary collaboration with bioengineering and nanotechnology, Luck said.
“What is really unique about the buildings is the collaborative potential,” he said.
The unveiling of the buildings is a significant step forward in orthopedic research and treatment, said Gerald Levey, vice chancellor of the medical sciences and the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine.
“This is a chance of a lifetime,” Levey said. “The best patient care is dependent on the latest medical science research … and this will be a step forward to allowing us to accomplish that.”
With the opening of the new buildings, researchers, physicians and patients all have high hopes for what the research done there will produce.
“My hopes are that this center will be instrumental for treatment and that we will come up with successful treatments,” Luck said.
One example of the development of treatment that will be worked on is the use of genetic analysis to find a treatment for 22-year-old Melissa Sanchez, who was born with arthrogryposis, a rare disorder of the joints and muscles.
Born with bilateral dislocated hips, clubfeet, knee extension shortening and thumb, finger and palm malformations, Sanchez was 2 years old when her parents were told by doctors that she would be unable to walk, stand or feed herself because of her condition.
Since then, she has undergone 27 surgeries at Orthopaedic Hospital and is able to walk with a walker.
“I kind of proved (the doctors) wrong, and I began to learn how to walk,” Sanchez said.
With the opening of the new research buildings, she feels that hope will be provided to not only her but others as well.
“It has given me a lot of hope,” she said. “Hopefully kids younger than me won’t have to go through the same struggles I went through.”
Sanchez said that some of the things she wished she could do involve simple tasks like running, walking to the store or even putting on her own shoes.
“I want to do the things most people take for granted, and I’m hopeful that the research (done at the buildings) will help make that a reality someday,” she said.