The newest addition to the Phoenix Biomedical Campus includes cancer and pediatric research.

The Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building opens Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix.(Photo: Tom Tingle/The Republic)

The latest addition to the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campusopened Thursday to house labs forcancer, molecular medicine and other health research.

The University of Arizona helda ceremony Thursday nightto officially open its $136 million Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building on Seventh and Fillmore streets. The glass-and-copper structure adds to the universitys College of Medicine-Phoenixprograms downtown.

Phoenix designated about 30 acres of land for the campus, to draw innovative research and industry to the urban core. Arizonas three state universities already have facilities there with plans to build more.

UA President Ann Weaver Hart said the building captures what's necessary today for health solutions: collaboration between people who make discoveries and those who can help implement them into daily life.

"It means that we're in this together," she said.

UA's new site includes five labs to start, with more to come. Here are sixthings to know about the building:

The 10-story building is covered with 325,000 pounds of recycled copper panels, according to the university,that sparkle on Seventh Street. The look will change as thatcoppertarnishesover time, said Jennifer Andrews, assistantdirector of capital projects at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

Construction required more than 5 million pounds of steel.

The 245,000 square feet of space includewet and dry laboratories, offices and seminar rooms. Bond funding approved by the state Legislature nearly a decade ago paid for the construction.

A walkway dubbed the Grand Canyon connects the new tower to the universitys neighboring Health Sciences Education Building.

One lab will focus on treatments to disrupt a protein critical for most cancers to survive. Dr. William Cance, deputy director of the UA Cancer Center, recently moved his research to Arizona from Buffalo, N.Y.

Cance focuses on a protein he said is made by about 80 percent of cancers, called human focal adhesion kinase. Research focuses on developing therapeutics to target it.

In his lab, researchers can determine how a drug will interact with the protein, then test it. The team of three will soon hire additional people, Cance said.

The building is named for biomedical sciences partnerships. That means researchers will collaborate across fields and sectors to develop solutions to health problems.

The layout of the building will help with that, Cance said. His lab is next to other researchers, and open space means it's easy to bump into people to share information.

Thats where you find what other people are doing, Cance said. The laboratory culture is really one of sharing.

Andrews said the design of the building puts people from different departments who are studying similar topicstogether on the same floor.

One of the building's first tenants, the Center for Applied NanoBioscience and Medicine, has worldwide partnerships with universities and industry.

The team of about a dozen people is not a conventional academic group, Director Frederic Zenhausern said. Their diverse backgrounds guide the goal of designing technology that goes from discovery to marketplace, he said.

Research ranges from creating tools to monitor radiotherapy at a personalized level to developing new instruments to collect blood.Collaborators throughout the center include universities, organizations and companies in the U.S., Singapore, Italy and Japan.

Two tenants include partnerships with the Phoenix Childrens Hospital. The Ronald A. Matricaria Institute of Molecular Medicine examines genetic information to see what makes a patient susceptible to diseases like pediatric cancer. Researchers then create a personalized therapy.

The Pediatric Infectious Disease Research Laboratory focuses on pediatric vaccines.

Two floors of the building are completed to house the first five research labs. Other spaces are ready for more tenants and offices.

The next phase of construction includes more offices and temporary"hotel" work space for physicians working at the campus. The university expects that project to continue another year.

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