Peura Family

Post-doctoral fellow Jennifer Peura, M.D., at left, consults with Jean Schaffer, M.D. as she conducts research on the ability of fat to infiltrate cells Monday in Schaffer's lab Monday at the Washington University School of Medicine.
(Robert Cohen /P-D)

Washington University and BJC HealthCare are creating a new alliance and building a $114 million research center to improve health care options for millions of people who suffer from diabetes, cancer, antibiotic-resistant infections and other ailments.

The center, known as the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University, is a leap forward for Washington University in bringing the work of its world-renowned scientists to physicians and industry, and thereby to patients. It is among the nation's top institutions for medical research, but its breakthroughs have not always translated directly into treatments and approaches for improving patient care.

"We realize, more than ever, business development is the way that new discoveries and research reach people," said Dr. Larry J. Shapiro, dean of the School of Medicine. "It also is a way that we can give back to a community that has supported us very well."

The institute was set to be announced today at the university's School of Medicine site, where it is expected open in December 2009. It will share a new 11-story building with Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

The total cost to construct the building is $235 million, of which $121 million comes from Barnes-Jewish Hospital for half of the building's space. That space will be used for the hospital's food service, medical records and other offices.

BJC also is making a $30 million gift to establish the institute. It will cover part of Washington University's $114 million tab. The university is financing the rest with $49 million from research grants and contracts; $10 million from existing reserves; and $25 million in debt, said university spokeswoman Joni Westerhouse.

Steven H. Lipstein, president and chief executive officer of BJC, said the institute will help the hospital fulfill its mission of providing top-notch care.

Patients "will have available to them the latest clinical studies and the latest clinical findings in terms of how to treat disease," he said. "And we will become a destination for the scientists, physicians and researchers who really want to be at the leading edge of their field — we will be able to attract that kind of human talent to St. Louis."

The institute also should be a magnet for money, say industry experts.

Pharmaceutical companies are eager to sponsor research that could spark the next big blockbuster treatment. Disease-focused foundations and other philanthropies are placing big bets on researchers with breakthrough ideas in early diagnosis, prevention and cures. The National Institutes of Health, the federal agency responsible for funding most basic research, also is looking to fund projects that will net a quick and significant return on taxpayer money.

The institute will house five interdisciplinary research centers, each focused on a particular type of disease. Following the latest model in academia, the building will be composed of open spaces to foster collaboration and "aha!" moments among experts in a variety of areas — genomics, information technology, engineering and various medical specialties, for example.

Among the research center focus areas are cardiovascular disease in diabetics, age-related diseases of the brain, and the use of genomics to diagnose and treat cancer.

With these, "you've hit three of the top five most important programs being looked at by big pharmaceutical companies these days," said Joel Braunstein, chief executive of Baltimore-based LifeTech Research, a consultant in translating research innovations into commercial products and services.

The institute "is a major initiative to do that kind of (translational) work, and there's probably not a lot of institutions that could afford to do it," he said.

Dr. Jean Schaffer, director of the research center studying diabetic cardiovascular disease, said her team is building understanding of why two-thirds of diabetics — or more than 13 million people in the United States — also suffer from cardiovascular disease. They hope to find the biological mechanisms at work and figure out how to spot them before a patient develops heart trouble.

"We're really in the throes of it. We are in the process of moving this from the lab bench to the bedside, and it is very exciting," she said. "We want to think out of the box and with many different perspectives," and that's what the institute is all about.

Scott Hultgren, who is head of the research center for Women's Infectious Disease Research, hopes to build awareness of health problems among a population that for years has been overlooked in clinical and basic research.

He is a leader in understanding "biofilms," a stage of infectious disease that is resistant to antibiotic treatments and is at the root of recurring urinary tract infections. His lab is collaborating with Sequoia Sciences Inc., an Olivette-based company that is developing drugs from plant sources, and he expects the institute overall will spawn further entrepreneurial collaborations.

"This is in its infant stages right now. Everywhere I go and begin to talk about this, even here in St. Louis, the momentum is incredible. The snowball is just getting bigger in terms of the excitement and enthusiasm," Hultgren said. "I think the support from industry is going to grow and grow."

Leaders at Washington University and BJC said today's announcement is just the start.

Washington University has space in the institute building that is unaccounted for and will be used to lure researchers and create additional research centers. It also is building a 16,000-square-foot data center to increase computing power for the Genome Sequencing Center, one of four such centers in the world.

In addition, BJC and Washington University will launch a Center for Biomedical Informatics, Lipstein said. It will link patients' medical records and genomic information, gathered at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, with research being done in the university's Genome Sequencing Center.

The goal is to develop new diagnostic tools, cures and treatment plans that can be based on each patient's unique genetic profile — an area of medicine still in its infancy, but which is generating a lot of excitement as well as controversy.

This center initially will focus on diseases that are being addressed in the research centers. The result should be a powerhouse of information directed at treating and curing "the most common health problems affecting our society," Lipstein said.

Shapiro said neither his university nor BJC could do this work alone. And they will need more partners.

"The world is a lot more complex than it was 50 years ago" in science and health care, he said. "This kind of work requires teams. … It's not a cottage industry any more."

rmelcer@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8394