Children's Hospital Medical Center continued to expand its medical research abilities Friday when it opened a nine-story, 112,000-square-foot addition to its research tower.

        The $35 million project reflects the third major expansion of research space at the hospital since 1991. It will employ more than 400 people working in an expanded developmental biology program, a new im munobiology program and several offices for clinical care research.

        “For us, bringing this facility on line comes at a time when the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and private industry are increasing their research funding. It also comes at a time when research opportunities are growing through advances such as the Human Genome Project,” said Dr. Thomas Boat, director of the Children's Hospital Research Foundation.

BUILDING BOOM

The new research wing at Children's Hospital Medical Center is just one of several large construction projects happening at the Corryville campus. Combined, the work exceeds $155 million.     • Research wing: Nine-story, 112,000 square feet of lab and office space off the back of the hospital. Complete.     • Education center: Addition along the front face of the hospital on Burnet Avenue to be named in honor of Dr. Albert Sabin. Nearly complete. Grand opening planned in March.     • Parking garage: 800 spaces to relieve years of parking shortages. Located along Burnet Avenue; to be complete in March.     • Clinical care tower: Eight-story addition rising at the corner of Burnet and Erkenbrecher. Most structural and exterior work complete. Internal work to be complete by summer 2002.

        Research has been exploding at Children's, considered one of the nation's top pediatric hospitals. In 1992, the hospital had about $12 million in external research grants from public and private sources. This year, it had $49 million.

        Overall, the Children's Hospital Research Foundation claims more than 520,000 square feet of laboratory and office space, which Dr. Boat said makes it the nation's largest pediatric research facility.

        The research tower expansion celebrated Friday comes after a 120,000-square-foot expansion in 1998 and a 129,000-square-foot expansion in 1991.

        The opening also comes during a week when the University of Cincinnati detailed more than $200 million in plans to expand its biotech research facilities. Children's Hospital is affiliated with UC.

        The true impact of the new research wing will be felt in years to come. Among the potential benefits:

        • New ways to prevent birth defects.

        • Improved asthma treatment.

        • Expanding the types of organ transplants performed locally.

        The new facility will house most of the staff of Dr. Christopher Wylie, a world-class expert in developmental biology recruited from the University of Minnesota this summer.

        Developmental biology focuses on the genetic and molecular factors behind how bodies grow. By studying flies, worms, frogs and mice, Dr. Wylie's team hopes to explain what goes wrong when human babies are born with holes in their hearts, malformed lungs, cleft lips and so on.

        “This is a particularly hot field right now,” Dr. Boat said. “One of the reasons we were able to bring (Dr. Wylie) here is that we had this facility coming on line.”

        Another focus at the new wing will be immunobiology, led by Dr. Marsha Wills-Karp, who came to Cincinnati in September from Johns Hopkins Institute.

        This area includes basic research into childhood cancer, asthma, organ transplant and infectious diseases.

        “Results from this work will play out over the next three to five to 10 years,” Dr. Boat said. “What we'd expect to see are new ways of treating asthma, new types of immune-suppressants for transplants and so on.”

        The research work, combined with the recent recruitment of Dr. Sam Kokochis, a pediatric gastroenterologist from the University of Pittsburgh, could expand the range of organ transplants done at Children's Hospital.

        Beyond the heart, kidney and liver work done now, the hospital hopes to begin intestinal transplants in about a year, Dr. Boat said. After that, the hospital plans to start lung transplants, he said.

        Meanwhile, much of the new wing will be devoted to clinical research. Patients won't be given experimental treatments there, but the new wing will provide office and lab space to analyze the results.
       
       

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