Saint Louis University medical researchers now have both the blessing and the science knowledge to make discoveries relating to diseases and vaccine development at the $82 million Edward A. Doisy Research Center.
SLU President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., blessed the new facility on Friday during a 30-minute outdoor ceremony.
“I know that the work being done here will touch many lives far beyond the walls of this structure and will keep Saint Louis University on the forefront of cutting-edge medical research,” Biondi said.
Scientists working at the 10-story Doisy facility are looking for life-saving cures in five key areas: cancer, aging/brain disease, liver disease, diseases of the heart and lungs, and vaccine development.
The new research center has 80 flexible research labs on eight floors and a penthouse terrace. The high-security facility includes open lab modules and separate highest-security areas for infectious disease research.
“They are working with agents that are highly infectious so the labs are separate,” said Craig Dixon, SLU assistant director for design and construction and project manager for the Doisy Center.
Dixon said scientists will work on “human or aerosol contaminants, including HIV, tuberculosis, small pox, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis.”
One research project at the Doisy Center involves the viral infection from Hepatitis C and African Americans. The virus can cause progressive liver damage, leading to fibrosis and cirrhosis, and eventually liver failure, liver cancer and death.
“The infection frequency in the African-American population is roughly double that of the Caucasian population,” said John Tavis, Ph.D., professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, who works in the Doisy Research Center.
There is no vaccine for Hepatitis C, but there is a year-long, two-drug therapy treatment.
Tavis is working to determine why the treatment available has such a poor success rate for African-American patients.
He said the therapy “fails about 50 percent of the time in Caucasians or Asians, but in African Americans it fails about twice as often, which means it’s successful in only about 25 percent of the cases. If you can figure out why the therapy is failing so often in African Americans, you may be able to alter the therapy to work better.”
Inclusion on the job
Dixon said the university met the City’s 25 percent Minority Business Enterprise and five percent WBE enterprise goals for construction projects.
The building was designed by Cannon Design and built by Clayco Construction.
“They thought it was the right thing to do to bring on minority partners to mentor and to have them gain valuable experience on a large multi-million-dollar project,” Dixon said.
“They took the model from the University’s commitment to improve MBE and WBE participation on all of our construction projects.”
Dixon said MBE/WBEs on the job include: S&G Mechanical, Clay Mechanical, BRK Electric, Centrex Electrical Supply, ABR, ABNA Engineering, TSI Engineering, Legacy Building Group, Marvin Peebles Masonry, TS Flooring, Document Imaging Systems, Resource Electric, B&P Construction, K. Bates Steel, F&F Heating & Cooling, MJ Mechanical, Capital International Communications, MT Company, Hope Concrete, Flexton Contracting, Champion Courier Service, Spight Contracting, Vasquez Metal Products and CCR Painting.
Scientists began moving into the 206,000 square-foot building located at Grand and Choteau in St. Louis this fall. SLU is seeking “green” status for its environmentally-friendly construction through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Steel, bricks and other materials removed during demolition of previous buildings on the site were recycled. The building boasts an energy-efficient heating and cooling system, and builders used recycled steel, concrete, floor finishes and carpeting along with materials from rapidly renewable sources such as bamboo and cord. The building has a “green roof,” made of low- growing vegetation requiring little care or water and planted to help keep even temperatures inside the building.
The center is named for the late Dr. Edward Doisy, a Nobel Laureate and professor at Saint Louis University and internationally recognized biochemistry pioneer who discovered the chemical property of vitamin K. (Doisy won the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1943)
“What a fitting legacy that a building named in Dr. Doisy’s honor will be a new research home to Saint Louis University scientists engaged in medical discoveries to fight disease and human suffering,” said Patricia Monteleone, M.D., dean of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
