 | Postdoctoral researcher Hava Gil-Henn and associate research scientist V.P. Eswarakumar conduct laboratory work in the pharmacology department's newly renovated facilities. The two-phased renovation project provides for more flexible space for researchers as well as laboratory spaces for four new faculty members. |
There will be a scientific symposium at the School of Medicine on Thursday, Oct. 23, to celebrate the opening of the Department of Pharmacology's new wing and renovated laboratories.
The theme of the symposium, "New Frontiers in Molecular Pharmacology and Medicine," reflects the goal of the new and renovated wing -- to provide state of the art laboratory space at Yale for one of the fastest growing areas in science.
The construction and renovation consists of a new multi-level extension to the Sterling Hall of Medicine and a two-phased renovation of the existing B-Wing, which was built 1923-1924. The extension provides laboratory space for Joseph Schlessinger, the William H. Prusoff Professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology; labs for four new assistant professors; and space for a senior crystallographer, who is being recruited in conjunction with the Departments of Cell Biology, and Cellular and Molecular Physiology.
The symposium will be held 9 a.m.-5 p.m. in Harkness Auditorium, Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar St. It is free and open to the public.
Speakers at the event will include two Nobel Prize winners -- Joseph Goldstein of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University -- as well as Tony Hunter of the Salk Institute; Joan Steitz of Yale; Jack Dixon of the University of California at San Diego Cancer Center; and Robert Weinberg of the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Together with surrounding buildings -- Harkness Dormitory, the Child Study Center addition, the Sterling Hall of Medicine I-Wing, and the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health -- the extension completes a crescent-shaped urban space facing South Frontage Road. The façade is Georgian Revival to conform with the adjacent architecture.
The architects who designed the new B-Wing Extension say it was like adding a missing tooth, creating a "bridge" that made it look as though the tooth had always been there.
"There was a gaping hole over two existing loading docks, and we built the new building over the hole," says architect Ian Adamson of Payette Associates of Boston. "The two loading docks had to remain active during construction, so the extension is built on four massive columns, like an oil derrick out in the ocean, with a huge truss structure."
The five floors of new construction total 30,153 square feet, according to the project manager, Wen Lin. The central loading and receiving center of the medical school is located on the street level floor near South Frontage Road. The next floor, on the level with the forecourt of the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health, provides mechanical space for the extension and a secondary pedestrian entrance.
Above the mechanical space are three laboratory floors, all nearly identical in function and layout. Each floor contains 21 wet lab workstations with corresponding carrels -- 2,100 square feet of lab space, along with 1,200 square feet of lab support and 1,100 square feet of combined offices, conference rooms and break room space. The new laboratory area connects with the existing
Payette, who also designed the new Anlyan Research Center, placed the ceilings in the new extension as high as possible to accommodate large windows, resulting in large, airy rooms flooded with natural light.
The design included taking corridor space in some areas to create wider, lighter areas with floor to ceiling windows that look into conference rooms, break rooms and other common space. The architects created the same light-filled spaces for the office suites.
The construction and renovations transform a series of small, often oddly-shaped rooms into large, flexible laboratory modules and laboratory-support spaces, cold rooms, break rooms, faculty offices and conference rooms. The entire wing now has new heating, air conditioning/ventilation, fire protection, plumbing and electrical systems.
The two-phased renovation project upgrades about 38,000 gross square feet of space on the first, second and third floors of the B-Wing. The renovations are part of an ongoing effort to improve existing research facilities throughout the medical school.
Bob Skolozdra, associate, Svigals & Partners Architects, who designed the renovations, said the project was a challenge because of the changes in research since the time the building was originally constructed.
"In the past, laboratories were smaller and more specific to individual research," he says. "Now they are set up a little more generically so that they can be flexible for research and changes in assignment of space."
The Pharmacology B-Wing extension provides laboratory space for the department chair and four new assistant professors, two of whom have already been appointed.
Brief profiles on these researchers follow.
Ya Ha, who was appointed in 2001, uses x-ray diffraction to study how membrane proteins on the surface of nerve cells carry out complex biological functions and how changes in these proteins cause nerve degeneration.
Currently Ha's laboratory focuses on a protein called beta-amyloid produced during the progression of Alzheimer's disease. His research team studies the unusual reaction that produces beta-amyloid and the way that beta-amyloid damages surrounding nerve cells by interacting with specific receptors on those cells.
Ha earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and did postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard with the late professor Don Wiley. While at Harvard, Ha's research included the molecular factors affecting emerging infectious diseases, the molecular basis of inherited metabolic diseases, and the protein structure/function relationship of diseases using X-ray crystallography. He was awarded the 1999 Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 2002 Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award.
David Calderwood, whose appointment as assistant professor will be effective Nov. 1, comes to Yale from the Division of Vascular Biology and the Department of Cell Biology at The Scripps Research Institute.
His research focuses on the intracellular interactions of integrins, a family of proteins that control how cells stick to one another and to the mix of molecules that surround them. Tight control of integrin activation is essential for normal development, blood clotting, wound healing and the immune response. Deregulated activation contributes to tumor metastases, thrombosis and inflammation.
Previously, Calderwood and his colleagues mapped the site in talin that binds to cytoplasmic domains of the integrin ß subunit. In recent studies, he provided the first convincing evidence that the binding of talin to integrins is a crucial step in regulating the integrins' activation state.
Calderwood earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh and his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester.
-- By Jacqueline Weaver
T H I S
Pharmacology department
marks opening of new wing
B-Wing to provide easy access to the adjacent departments.
New faculty
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