Home >  Health & Science

$130 million facility opens this week

Monday, October 07, 2002

By Byron Spice, Post-Gazette Science Editor

Dr. John Kirkwood has worked hard for three decades to find a cure for the deadly skin cancer called melanoma. But during the years when his offices and laboratories were in Oakland, it sometimes seemed as if he worked almost as hard just to find his collaborators.

	Dr. Hassane Zarour, right, examines lymphocyte cells from a cancer patient with the help of fellow researcher Dr. Maja Mandic in their new labs at the Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside last week. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette)

He'd see patients in the Falk Clinic or UPMC Montefiore on Fifth Avenue, then check on his mouse experiments in the Gold Building on Forbes Avenue. He'd visit his dermatology colleagues up the hill in Lothrop and Victoria halls, his surgical collaborators further up in Scaife Hall and visit additional labs atop the hill at the VA Medical Center. Labs at the Biomedical Science Tower were blocks away from those at Magee-Womens Research Institute.

Moving constantly between labs and clinics and consulting with colleagues across disciplinary lines is what cancer research is all about, Kirkwood said.

In Oakland, he added, "we've done it at the cost of a lot of shoe leather."

But all that has changed since Kirkwood and other University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute researchers moved into the Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside.

Now, the vast majority of researchers and physicians are under one roof -- clinicians in a 165,000-square-foot, five-story Ambulatory Pavilion on one side of the central atrium, researchers in a 180,000-square-foot Research Pavilion on the other.

	Online Map: Hillman Cancer Center

UPMC Health System officials will formally open the $130 million facility Wednesday, but doctors began seeing patients there a month ago. The last of 70 research groups were moved into the center Thursday.

Now, when Kirkwood wants to talk with Dr. Hassane Zarour, who is developing cancer vaccines for treating melanoma, he can practically rap on the wall.

"His offices are smack next to mine," Kirkwood said, and are part of a cluster with Walter Storkus, a surgical oncology researcher, and Yukai He, a dermatology researcher working on genetic vaccines. "My own research has to do with applying the fruits of their labors," he added.

"As we exit our offices, we sort of bump into each other."

Zarour, an immunologist who devotes all of his time to basic research, said he was happy that his labs are now in the same building as the patient care areas.

"It's very important for us to be as close to the patients as possible," he said, explaining that he often needs blood and tissue samples from human patients to conduct his vaccine studies.

In Oakland, he would trek back and forth between the Biomedical Sciences Tower and UPMC Montefiore to do this work; now he crosses the atrium.

"This is very unusual to have researchers, including basic researchers, in such close proximity to patients," said Dr. Ronald Herberman, director of the cancer institute. It improves efficiency and productivity of cancer research, to be sure, but perhaps most importantly, it ensures that researchers are constantly aware of patients, he said.

About 80 percent of the institute's researchers, and virtually all of those who work on cancer full time, are now housed in the Research Pavilion, which has about twice as much space as all of the institute's former labs in Oakland. Other scientists, mainly those who work on other research interests as well as cancer issues, remain in Oakland at Magee, Children's Hospital and the Biomedical Science Tower.

"We've given a lot of thought to how to bridge the gap of more than a mile" between the Shadyside and Oakland labs, Herberman said. Shuttle buses run every 15 minutes between the sites, he said, and video-conferencing facilities are being installed so that researchers on the two campuses can not only talk with each other but also see each other.

The Research Pavilion was designed to foster interaction among researchers. It is laid out on three floors to minimize the use of stairs and elevators, and the labs are largely without walls, so one research space flows into the next.

	The 300,000-square-foot Hillman Cancer Center, left, with older buildings along Baum Boulevard in Shadyside. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette)

About 90 percent of the cancer institute's clinicians are housed in the clinical wing. Pediatric oncologists remain at Children's, gynecologic cancer specialists practice at Magee and head and neck cancer specialists continue to see patients at the Eye and Ear Institute, where operating rooms have specialized equipment and the surgeons also see noncancer patients.

In Oakland, cancer institute staff members were spread out over seven to eight buildings, Herberman said. Housing for clinics and researchers varies among cancer centers across the country, he said, but some other notable cancer research centers are set up in free-standing buildings such as the Shadyside facility, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City, M.D. Anderson in Houston and the Fred Hutchinson center in Seattle.

"We, I think, have now largely jumped ahead of them," Herberman said, noting that Sloan-Kettering on New York's Upper East Side recently sought to accommodate more patients by opening an outpatient facility in mid-Manhattan, about two miles away.

But the cancer institute found that it filled its new space much faster than anticipated. Even though research square footage has doubled, only a few areas remain unfilled, and those are reserved for several research groups that are being actively recruited, Herberman said.

"We occupied it much more rapidly than we expected" when ground was broken three years ago, he said, because the institute's research projects have been growing so vigorously.

Zarour was one of the first scientists to move into the Research Pavilion in late August. Like most researchers, he hates to move; moving requires halting his research while equipment is disassembled and assembled and cell lines are stored and transported.

But he has grown to like his new surroundings -- the open space, the lack of walls.

"I have to say, this is a beautiful building," he said. "I think it will be a very nice place to live and work."

The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has invited the public to visit the Hillman Cancer Center during an open house from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday. The center is at 5115 Centre Ave., Shadyside, directly across from UPMC Shadyside. Free parking will be available in the UPMC Shadyside Medical Center garage. Live music, refreshments and information about UPCI services will be available in addition to facility tours.