Indiana University School of Medicine started building on Oct. 19 in Indianapolis, Indiana to create a $230 million medical education and research building.
At the facility west of Senate Avenue and south of the IU Neurosciences Research Center on 16th Street, this building will stand 11 stories tall and take up 326,200 square feet of land.
Dr. Jay L. Hess, IU School of Medicine dean and IU executive vice president for university clinical affairs, said this is the first new classroom space in Indianapolis since 1959.
“The future of the physician workforce, particularly in Indiana, will spend time in this building,” Hess said. “To be able to design a building that can bring the latest technology, like holographic ways of learning anatomy, we have built a building that optimizes for training physicians in the very best ways.”
As one of the largest medical schools in the country, the construction project is the largest in IU School of Medicine’s 120-year history.
The first three floors will be entirely dedicated to medical education. There will be two large lecture halls and smaller classrooms to help with problem-based learning. Also included within these floors is a surgical learning lab where residents and fellows can develop skills and gain real time feedback in all types of surgery.
Connecting on the south side of the building, an eight-story tower will contain faculty offices for those directly involved in medical education. Included will be 100,000 square feet of space for the researchers.
“Building a facility that will train generations of physicians to help serve in Indiana and beyond, is so important,” Hess said. “This is like the iconic gates in Bloomington, well known, this is the center of gravity for the School of Medicine.”
According to an article from News at IU, IU President Pamela Whitten said she hopes this new building will help prepare students and help save lives.
“As we break ground on Indiana University School of Medicine’s new medical education and research building, we celebrate the creation of a space that will accelerate our faculty’s cutting-edge discoveries,” Whitten said in the article.
Dave and Susan Roberts, supporters of Alzheimer’s research at IU, donated $10 million for furthering Alzheimer’s research at the School of Medicine.
With the donation, one of the floors of this new building will be dedicated to Alzheimer’s research along with other neuroscience research. IU School of Medicine is one of the country's oldest Alzheimer's disease research centers and a state leader in dementia-related disease research.
Dr. Bruce Lamb, executive director of Stark Neurosciences Research Institute and Roberts Family Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research, said the donation from the Roberts will help expand neurodegenerative research throughout Indiana.
“Dave and Susan Roberts continue to want to help make a difference,” Lamb said. “They want to help find a solution and find it here in Indiana. The research building will allow us to expand our center for neurodegenerative disorders at another level.”
Indiana School of Medicine is fourth in the nation in funding provided by the National Institute on Aging. Lamb said this funding will allow Alzheimer's research to expand throughout Indiana.
“My hope, especially for Alzheimer’s, is that some of the solutions will come from Indiana,” Lamb said. “With the funding from the National Institute on Aging, I think it is quite possible that some of the solutions for these terrible diseases will come from Indiana.”
