All three institutes — the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD), the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI), and the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND) — are scheduled to move their laboratories to the new research building in late 2004.

With six floors and more than 190,000 gross square feet, the new building will allow Gladstone to grow from its current staff of nearly 300 to more than 500. The move also will strengthen Gladstone's ties with UCSF. Currently, with UCSF labs centered at the Parnassus Heights campus, and Gladstone labs at the San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center, day-to-day contact is inconvenient. At Mission Bay, the new Gladstone building will be directly across the street from UCSF's Genentech Hall and the new community center. Interactions between scientists will be greatly improved.

Fostering the relationship will involve meeting one-on-one in each other's offices, attending seminars, participating in lab meetings and journal clubs, and sharing techniques.

"We foresee a constant exchange of ideas that will benefit researchers at both institutions," said Robert Mahley, Gladstone's founding president. "There will be a synergy that will promote the progress of research and the unveiling of basic science."

Karl Weisgraber, GICD deputy director, agrees. With his research focusing on the molecular structure of proteins, he looks forward to collaborating with UCSF structural biologists, who will be among the first to move into Genentech Hall. "It will be a tremendous boost to have easy access to all that knowledge," he said.

Weisgraber has been at Gladstone since its founding in 1979. While he said he has some sentimental attachment to the old buildings of SFGH Medical Center, he is definitely ready for the invigoration that the new labs will bring to the research program.

At least one-half of UCSF's neuroscience program may be moving to Mission Bay in the near future, said Lennart Mucke, director of GIND. This is good for researchers at GIND who will then be closer to colleagues with whom they can collaborate. At the new campus, Mucke plans to organize an interdisciplinary seminar series in neurobiology, which should promote the exchange of ideas and knowledge between members of the neuroscience program at Gladstone and in the other research facilities on the new campus.

Like the two other institutes, GIVI plans to expand and add more investigators to its faculty after the move to Mission Bay, said Warner Greene, GIVI director. He said that he also looks forward to the move and the "many new and stimulating interactions with our university colleagues at Mission Bay."

"Moving to Mission Bay will greatly benefit our scientific mission as the 'critical mass' of scientists will be much greater than that provided at SFGH Medical Center," Greene said. "Such critical mass often translates into more rapid progress as ideas, techniques, and perspectives are shared."

In addition to facilitating convenient contact with UCSF colleagues, the new building will provide an excellent research environment for the Gladstone scientists. First, scientists from all three institutes will be under one roof. This will foster a sense of unity and encourage communication and collaborations among Gladstone researchers.

Communication within a lab group also will improve, said GICD investigator Bruce Conklin. The new labs are designed to be bigger and more open than the current labs, thus allowing for more cohesion within a lab.

In addition, the newer labs will help Gladstone to attract and retain top postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, who base their decisions on the quality of research in a lab but also are influenced by the quality of the facilities, Conklin said. Also attractive will be Gladstone's proximity to major bus lines and the beauty of the Mission Bay campus, some of which is being developed into nature areas.

Gladstone's core labs provide valuable services to investigators. These core labs will be much better suited to serve the needs of research at the new building, where the facilities are being specifically designed for each core. Currently, core research labs provide services in genomics, microscopy, histology, flow cytometry, behavior, biohazard level 3 tissue culture, and transgenics. Core labs that are being formed include stem cell biology, bioinformatics, and proteomics.

The move to Mission Bay represents an exciting new phase for Gladstone. "This decision was an investment in the future," Mahley said. "The move will enhance our ability to fulfill our mission of contributing to the health and well-being of all people through the elucidation of basic mechanisms, involving cardiovascular disease, AIDS and virologic disease, and Alzheimer's disease and neurodegenerative disorders."

Link: Gladstone Institutes

Source: Laura Lane

Last updated January 28, 2005

Robert Mahley, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, talks with Chao Chen. Mahley led a team that discovered that a protein called APOE2 was a risk factor for heart disease. Photo by David Powers.

Lennart Mucke, UCSF neurologist and director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, is working to solve the epidemic of Alzheimer's disease with colleague Carol Lin. Photo by David Powers.