ANN ARBOR—A $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will support the construction of new laboratory and clinical facilities at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Artist’s rendering of School of Public Health renovation.The grant, from the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources, will support the establishment of multidisciplinary research facilities on two floors of the new, seven-story research tower now under construction. The laboratories will occupy about 11,500 square feet of the new space.

In addition to funding construction of new lab space, the grant will help fund the renovation of about 5,000 square feet of existing space to house clinical research facilities.

“This NIH grant will help the School of Public Health do what it does best—bring together people, ideas and disciplines, whose work will improve the public’s health,” predicts the school’s dean, Noreen Clark. “The new research building will contain shared laboratory space and equipment, making us more efficient and making it easier for faculty to connect with one another.”

Called “The Crossroads of Public Health,” Public Health’s building project includes a 125,000 square-foot addition with a new, seven-story research tower and a two-story Crossroads building that will house classrooms, conference rooms and centers, as well as renovation of the school’s existing two buildings. The Crossroads will connect all the buildings into one complex.

The project, which has an anticipated budget of $70 million, aims to better equip public health for newly emerging priorities like bioterrorism preparedness, understanding new genetic technologies and the globalization of health, and to provide needed laboratory space in the 60-year-old building. Project funding will be provided from private gifts, SPH resources and capital investment proceeds. It is slated for completion in 2006.

A W.K. Kellogg Foundation gift of $5 million and a $5 million anonymous donation received earlier this year are among the early major contributions toward SPH’s fund-raising campaign.

“These resources are designed to catalyze new research efforts and foster collaborative cross-discipline initiatives that will enhance the University of Michigan School of Public Health’s ability to make research contributions that will safeguard human health,” said Dr. Sidney McNairy, associate director for research infrastructure at the National Center for Research Resources, NIH.

The U-M School of Public Health is at the forefront of national and international developments and is among the nation’s top schools of public health. During the past five years, sponsored research in the school has doubled to $67 million. Current research in the school directly addresses the goals outlined in the Institute of Medicine’s “Healthy People 2010,” a call to action on such things increasing quality and years of healthy life, and eliminating health disparities.

Related links:

• School of Public Health
• Details on the Crossroads of Public Health
• National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources