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$500
million for medicine
Corporation
approves construction of Congress Avenue Building and a 10-year
renovation plan.
After two years
of incremental approvals, the Yale Corporation voted at its February
meeting to construct a major new research and teaching facility
on Congress Avenue as part of a plan to invest at least $500
million in medical school facilities over the next 10 years.
Excavation of
the site—a full block bounded by Congress and Howard avenues
and Cedar and Gilbert streets—began in early March following
demolition of the eight-story brick building at 350 Congress
Ave. and several adjacent structures. University officials have
signed a $176 million contract for construction of the new Congress
Avenue Building (CAB), with occupancy expected in March 2003.
It is anticipated that the project will be supported in part
by philanthropy.
“This is
the largest single investment in a facility in Yale’s history,”
President Richard C. Levin said of the new building when the
decision was announced Feb. 24 before a large crowd of faculty
and staff in the Medical Historical Library. “This is only
the beginning of an important period of investment in the School
of Medicine. By the end of the decade, we will have invested
half a billion dollars in facilities here and have a scientific
research capability that is second to none.”
The decision
came a month after the announcement that the University would
invest another $500 million to construct and improve science
and engineering facilities on the central campus, bringing the
new investment in science during the next decade to $1 billion.
According to Levin, “For Yale to remain among the very best
universities, to be the best university in the world, we must
be among the best in science. That is an imperative for the 21st
century.”
The Congress
Avenue Building—actually two wings joined by an atrium and
central courtyard—will contain six floors of laboratories
for disease-oriented research, core facilities for genomics and
magnetic resonance imaging, a 140-seat auditorium, and state-of-the-art
teaching space for anatomy and histology. In the final blueprints,
the building measures 450,000 gross square feet and includes
136,600 net square feet of wet-bench laboratory, lab-support
and research-office space. Overall, the facilities plan will
increase lab space at the medical school by 25 percent.
The announcement
of the new building generated excitement across the medical school
campus, which first looked to the Congress Avenue site for relief
from its space shortage more than a decade ago. Dean David A.
Kessler, M.D., drew a loud round of applause when he announced
the March 2003 move-in date.
“There
is no doubt,” he told the crowd, “that this investment
will affect the future of the medical school and quicken the
pace at which we can bring discoveries in the laboratories to
the benefit of our patients. It will enhance our research space,
our educational programs and the opportunities we can afford
students, and it will help us sustain a brilliant and creative
faculty as they literally transform the face of medicine.”
The decade-long
facilities plan includes provisions to renovate existing laboratories
throughout the medical school and to look carefully at the future
use of space that will be made available when the future occupants
of CAB move to the new building. Kessler said that the departments
will have an opportunity to put forward requests and participate
in the planning based on the school’s academic needs and
priorities. |
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Smoke
signals
Research
unit to investigate why some tobacco users simply can’t
quit.
For many, nicotine
gum or the patch has tipped the balance in the struggle to quit
smoking. Others try hypnosis or break the habit cold turkey.
But for a significant subgroup of smokers who would like to stop,
nothing seems to work. Yale researchers recently received a $10
million grant to find out why.
The grant, from
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Cancer Institute
and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is part of a five-year,
$84 million nationwide plan to create tobacco research centers
around the country in an effort to reduce tobacco use. Six other
institutions have been awarded grants.
The new Transdisciplinary
Tobacco Use Research Center at Yale, led by Stephanie O’Malley,
Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, will undertake five research
projects. “The goal of our center is to improve tobacco
addiction treatment by studying why current treatments fail and
developing new behavioral and drug treatments that address these
factors,” said O’Malley. The Yale studies will focus
on three groups who are giving up smoking at a slower rate than
the nation as a whole: female smokers, smokers with depression
and smokers who drink heavily.
Robert B. Innis,
M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, will use
PET and SPECT imaging to improve understanding of brain systems
altered by smoking. Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, Ph.D., assistant
professor of psychiatry, will study behavioral, biochemical and
endocrine responses that follow smoking cessation. Peter Salovey,
Ph.D., professor of psychology and of epidemiology and public
health and in the Cancer Center, will compare the effectiveness
of anti-smoking messages that emphasize the benefits of quitting
and those that emphasize the risks of not quitting. Marina R.
Picciotto, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and pharmacology,
will study the biological bases of depression, heavy drinking
and female gender in resistance to smoking cessation. O’Malley
will expand on previous studies that suggest that the drug naltrexone,
used for alcohol dependence, may also help smokers quit when
combined with a nicotine patch. “It is critically important
that more effective smoking cessation treatments be developed,”
O’Malley said, “because most smokers try to quit only
once every three to four years.” |
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Medical
school gears up
for Yale’s 300th
With its own
bicentennial only a decade away, the medical school has its sights
set on a more immediate cause for celebration and reflection:
the 300th anniversary of the founding of Yale College in 1701.
The first of three University-wide Tercentennial weekend celebrations
is planned for Oct. 21 of this year along the theme of “New
Haven and Yale,” with a number of open houses in laboratories,
museums, classrooms and theaters across the University.
The second anchor
celebration will take place April 20-22, 2001, around the theme
“300 Years of Creativity and Discovery” at Yale. The
culminating events of the Tercentennial will occur Oct. 5-7,
2001, the weekend closest to the anniversary of the signing of
Yale’s charter.
The medical
campus will join in the opening of the Tercentennial in October
with events exploring the themes of “Community Outreach,”
“Teaching What We Do” and “Engaging the Public.”
In a series of exhibits, demonstrations, hands-on activities
and lectures, the public will have a chance to learn how to conduct
a physical exam, explore the body using virtual anatomy software
and peer at molecules through an electron microscope. A photographic
exhibit will chronicle the activities of students and faculty
who volunteer their time and skills in service of New Haven.
Under the category of “Teaching What We Do,” the public
is invited to a series of activities which include a visit to
the Magnetic Resonance Center and an anatomy class for young
children. The Historical Library is planning tours and a display
of prints from the Clements C. Fry Print collection.
In November
playwright and performer Anna Deveare Smith will create a theater
piece based on interviews with patients, physicians, caregivers
and others at Yale-New Haven Hospital and the School of Medicine.
She will perform the piece at grand rounds during the week of
Nov. 13. |
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Harris
Building opens its doors
The Yale Child
Study Center, which has a long and distinguished history of research
and clinical work with children and families from around the
world, dedicated the new Neison and Irving Harris Building in
October.
Founded in 1911
by Arnold Gesell, the center has expanded its mission over the
years to include a wide array of programs ranging from basic
studies of developmental neurobiology and genetics to therapeutic
programs in schools and the community. The new 21,000-square-foot
Harris Building will house many of the center’s research
and community programs including the Child Development and Community
Policing Program, the Comer School Development Program, and the
range of research and clinical programs for very young children.
The building
was the gift of Neison and Irving Harris, Yale College graduates
who have had a long-standing interest in the welfare of children
and have been friends and supporters of the Child Study Center
for many years. The Harris family and many others have joined
together in their concern for children and families and their
trust in the work of the Child Study Center. According to Director
Donald J. Cohen, M.D. ’66, the building will help raise
the profile of children’s issues. “The idea is that
medical students and undergraduates will see the Yale Child Study
Center and recognize that the child and family are essential
to their education, regardless of what field they go into.”
Guests at the
opening on Oct. 14 included Irving and Joan Harris, New Haven
Mayor John DeStefano, Dean David A. Kessler, and Yale President
Richard C. Levin. |
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YCC
director will guide revision of National Cancer Act
In the 29 years
since the Nixon administration and Congress declared war on cancer
with the passage of the National Cancer Act, physicians and scientists
have discerned cancer’s origins, found ways to treat it
and made previously lethal forms of it manageable. Now a Senate
advisory committee is looking at ways to update the act to incorporate
this new knowledge. Leading the committee as co-chair is Vincent
T. DeVita Jr., M.D., director of the Yale Cancer Center and one
of the nation’s leading cancer experts. “Our knowledge
of cancer, cancer research and cancer control have changed substantially
since the original National Cancer Act was enacted,” says
DeVita, who believes cancer may someday be managed as a chronic
disease. He served as director of the National Cancer Institute
for nine years under presidents Carter and Reagan. “I look
forward to uniting the cancer community to formulate a new blueprint
for the war on cancer.”
The 20-member
committee, which will meet monthly throughout the year, includes
physicians, scientists, business leaders, insurance executives
and people with cancer. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from
California, asked DeVita to serve on the committee. The advisory
committee will work with the National Dialogue on Cancer (NDC),
of which DeVita is also a member. The NDC is led by former President
George Bush and brings together people in public, private and
non-profit organizations dedicated to eradicating cancer. |
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Work
of early cancer virologist celebrated at symposium
The human papilloma
virus (HPV) infects thousands of men and women each year. Symptoms
seldom appear, but for women it remains a potential threat later
in life. Under certain conditions, its presence can suggest a
higher risk of cervical cancer.
Because it serves
as an example of a link between viruses and cancer, HPV was chosen
as the topic of a symposium in December to honor Francesc Duran
i Reynals, M.D., one of the first researchers to explore cancer’s
viral origins. Duran i Reynals was a member of the Yale faculty
from 1938 until his death from cancer in 1958. The Francesc Duran
i Reynals Symposium, sponsored by the Yale Cancer Center, commemorated
the centenary of the physician’s birth in Barcelona in 1899.
While still
a medical student in Spain, Duran i Reynals joined the microbiology
laboratory of renowned researcher Ramon Turro. In 1925, Duran
i Reynals became the first Spanish scientist to culture bacterial
viruses. He became convinced that viruses could cause cancer
and secured a fellowship at Rockefeller University to pursue
his research. His work there and in New Haven shaped the study
of tumor biology.
Speakers at
the symposium included José Costa, M.D., professor and
vice chair of pathology; Josep M. Borras, M.D., director of the
Catalan Institute of Oncology; Xavier Bosch, M.D., chief of epidemiology
service at the Catalan Institute of Oncology; Daniel DiMaio,
M.D., professor and vice chair of genetics; and Carlos Cordon-Cardo,
M.D., director of the Division of Molecular Pathology at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dean David A. Kessler offered
closing remarks for the symposium, which was attended by members
and friends of the Duran i Reynals family. |
