UF center joins growing lineup at Medical City
Adding the fifth jewel in the Medical City’s crown, the University of Florida’s Research and Academic Center officially opened Friday at Lake Nona.
The event brings the Lake Nona Medical City one giant step closer to what its visionaries hoped for — the development of a top-flight bioscience cluster that incorporates medical education, research and treatment.
The UFResearch Center joins the already established SanfordBurnham Medical Research Institute, the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and the Burnett Biomedical Sciences Building, in addition to Nemours Children’s Hospital, which opened in October.
Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center had been scheduled to open this year but has
been delayed at least until next summer.
“We, and the other major partners at Lake Nona, put down roots not to reproduce what we already have, but to originate what we all wish for: Research and innovation that elevates our ambitions, magnifies our strengths, accelerates our achievements and — lest we lose sight of the most important goal — benefits society at large,” said UF President J. Bernard Machen.
Machen and others close to the project spoke at the grand- opening ceremony and ribbon-cutting Friday evening.
The $ 53 million, 106,000-square-foot facility extends UF’s presence into the Orlando area through a variety of colleges, institutes and centers. The state picked up $32 million of the center’s total cost, and the rest came from UF, said university spokeswoman Melanie Fridl Ross.
Already, 50 employees work at the new center. When programs staff up during the next several years, the center will employ as many as 200 professionals, Ross said.
Scientists from the UF Research and Academic Center and Medical City will collaborate to target treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and brain disorders, Ross said.
The ground floor of the modern, four-story building houses the lobby, a call center for medication management (run by third- and fourth-year pharmacy students) and a high-tech auditorium that can seat 285.
The second and third floors are home to the research departments, and the fourth floor is dedicated to the pharmacy college.
All clinical study and research areas have wet and dry labs, and academic spaces.
The modern, largely glass- faced building is LEED certified, so it satisfies the energy-efficiency and pollution-reduction requirements of the U. S. Green Building Council.
By branching into Lake Nona, the Gainesville-based university will expand the reach of several programs:
The College of Pharmacy expansion will allow the UF doctorate program to grow from 200 students to 280. Currently, about 50 UF pharmacy students attend classes in Apopka. Students in that program will move to the new center, which will accommodate 20 to 30 more.
Student pharmacists at Lake Nona will receive the same curriculum as classmates in Gainesville, Jacksonville and St. Petersburg, said Bill Millard, executive dean for the college. However, the Orlando-based students will now have opportunities to collaborate on projects with researchers at other Medical City facilities.
The Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology is among the first academic centers in the nation to adopt mathematical modeling and computer simulations to mimic clinical trials of new drugs, said center director Larry Lesko.
These simulated trials al- low researchers to more quickly and less expensively test drugs and weed out the less promising from those that appear more beneficial. The modeling also will help scientists learn to tailor drugs for more personalized medicine.
The Institute for Therapeutic Innovation will house a team of researchers focused on developing and testing treatments and cures for a variety of infectious diseases caused by drug-resistant pathogens.
Infectious- disease experts will conduct trials to help develop new anti-infectious disease drugs, which will benefit organtransplant programs, and help hospitals prevent and treat hospital-acquired infections, said institute director Dr. George Drusano.
The Institute on Aging will bring large, long-term clinical studies on aging to Orlando, allowing more seniors to participate in trials aimed at improving the health and independence of older adults.
The Clinical and Translational Science Institute will broaden community outreach, and work to connect area residents with the center’s clinical trials.