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October 5, 2007|Volume 36, Number 5


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The work that will be done in the new facility on Amistad Street is "truly a model for 21st-century research," says Medical School Dean Dr. Robert Alpern.



New facility is place where
‘future of medicine’ can unfold

If, as Yale scientist Jordan Pober says, translational medicine is a team sport, then the University’s newest science building, at 10 Amistad St. — which was officially opened on Oct. 5 — might be seen as the Madison Square Garden of research facilities.

The facility will serve as home to three programs focusing on translational research, linking basic studies in animal models to the health of people and potential cures.

Pober, head of the Human and Translational Immunology Program and vice chair of immunobiology at the School of Medicine, says the opening of the $88.6 million building is a milestone for science at the medical school. Not only does it provide much-needed lab space for several dozen investigators, but it will enable them to collaborate in ways that will produce results greater than the sum of the parts.

“This is the future,” said President Richard C. Levin at the ribbon-cutting ceremony that, along with a scientific symposium, celebrated the building’s opening. “We look forward to many more investments in science at Yale to improve man’s understanding of nature and to improve the human condition.”

Provost Andrew Hamilton said the new building “is going to be a place where great science is done. It has been constructed at the cutting edge of sustainable and green design.”

“This building,” added Medical School Dean Dr. Robert Alpern, “will house three outstanding science programs, all focused on what everybody calls the future of medicine: interdisciplinary science.”

Unlike traditional biomedical research teams — often composed of members of one discipline working in a single animal model — the three research programs housed in the 110,000-square-foot building draw from multiple departments and have shifted their focus solely from rodent studies to better understanding what works, and doesn’t work, in humans.

“The challenge is not to abandon animal research,” Pober says, “but to assemble other individuals who can be a bridge between people who study disease models and clinicians who take care of patients.”

The three groups include faculty members, such as Pober, who have been at Yale for many years as well as new recruits from other institutions and nations, including Russia, China and Japan.

“This new building is truly a model for 21st-century research,” said Alpern, “because it allows scientists with different expertise to attack problems from many angles.”

The Amistad Street building is part of the University’s $1 billion program to boost science and medicine. The four-story building and adjoining garage, constructed earlier at a cost of $24.2 million, opens on the heels of Yale’s acquisition of the 136-acre Bayer campus in West Haven and Orange, which includes 550,000 square feet of laboratory space.

The programs that will be headquartered in the Amistad Street building are as follows:



Two floors of the Amistad Street building are devoted to the Interdepartmental Program in Vascular Biology and Therapeutics, led by William Sessa.


The Interdepartmental Program in Vascular Biology and Therapeutics

Vascular biology is the study of the cells and molecules that interact in the vascular system, which supplies the organs and every cell in the body with oxygen and nutrients. According to William Sessa, the program’s director and professor of pharmacology, the group’s research is clinically relevant to cardiac disease. Its researchers will be studying the mechanisms underlying the blockage of arteries, as well as therapeutic angiogenesis, which involves stimulating the growth of collateral blood vessels on the heart, as well creating synthetic blood vessels.

Twelve investigators in the program are housed in two floors of labs. More than 40 Yale faculty members are affiliated with the program, including researchers from internal medicine, surgery, anesthesiology, pharmacology, pathology and immunobiology.



Jordan Pober (right) is director of the Human and Translational Immunology Program, which will focus on diseases related to organ transplantation, autoimmune disorders and the application of Immunotherapies to infectious disease, among other issues.


Human and Translational Immunology Program

Pober and Kevan Herold, professor of immunology, are the first two of what will eventually be eight core members in this program (one senior and five junior faculty members are still to be recruited). Pober says some of the diseases the group will be targeting relate to organ transplantation. They will also be studying the application of immunotherapies to infectious disease or cancer, and the basis for autoimmune disorders, such as asthma, type 1 diabetes and

lupus. In addition, the group will look at other diseases, such as arteriosclerosis, which lend themselves to therapeutic interventions by means of the immune system.

Herold, who has a secondary appointment in internal medicine/endocrinology, is in the midst of clinical trials in which the immune system is manipulated to obtain a remission or reversal of type 1 diabetes. Pober is working on ways to reduce the death rate in patients who receive organ transplants.

“Transplantation is an effective treatment for end organ failure. Most patients who undergo kidney transplantation and die do so because of heart failure, not because of rejection of the kidney,” he said. “We want to know why and how to prevent it.”



The "tremendous potential" of stem cells for curing many medical conditions will be explored at the Yale Stem Cell Center, led by Haifan Lin (center).


Yale Stem Cell Center

Led by Haifan Lin, professor of cell biology, this group is studying stem cell behavior.

“The stem cell,” Lin says, “is the mother of all cells. It harbors tremendous potential for curing cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and spinal cord injury.”

With his associate director, Diane Krause, professor of laboratory medicine and pathology, Lin is recruiting four more faculty members to conduct basic stem cell research and to investigate applications. They recently recruited Natalia Ivanova, formerly of Princeton University. “She has made landmark contributions to the stem cell field,” Lin says. “She has a very deep understanding of stem cell biology as well as cutting-edge technology, which is an unusual combination.”

The ways in which stem cells can both renew and develop into many different cell types is only partly understood. Lin is optimistic that these mechanisms will be decoded and one day lead to medical treatments.

“Just imagine,” he says, “if we were able to grow tissues to replace damaged heart muscle or brain tissues.”

Lin’s discovery of piRNAs, a complex dimension of the genetic circuitry, was voted by Science magazine as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of 2006. His lab’s latest work suggests that piRNAs, which are mostly derived from so-called “junk DNA,” have crucial functions in controlling the stem cell fate and other processes of tissue development.

Yale has been one of the top beneficiaries of the State of Connecticut’s allocation of funds to stem cell research, which will total $100 million statewide over a 10-year period. The state legislature also created a safe haven in Connecticut for work on human embryonic stem (hES) cell research, which is ineligible for federal funding except for certain cell lines established before President Bush’s executive order of Aug. 9, 2001. The stem cell center contains a core facility for culturing hES cells, enabling hES research to be conducted.

—Michael Fitzsousa
Director of Communications
Yale School of Medicine


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