UMass Chan Medical School is the commonwealth’s first and only public academic health sciences center, home to three graduate schools. Our mission is to advance the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service.
Land acknowledgment
UMass Chan Medical School acknowledges that its campus is located on lands that were once part of the original homeland of the Nipmuc people. We denounce the violence that stripped these original stewards of lands that were their ancestral home and denied their descendants the opportunity for an authentic connection to it. In making this acknowledgment, we announce our intention to listen to and follow the lead of our Indigenous neighbors and work together to create new legacies of equity and respect.
Correction: In the winter 2023-24 issue of @umasschan magazine, Pamela Aubrey was misidentified in a photo on page 11. We apologize for the error.
New education and research building unveiled; honorary degree awarded to WHO Director-General
Proclaiming that the next generation of medical advances could arise from research conducted in its labs, offering hope to people around the world, leaders from near and far celebrated the ribbon cutting for UMass Chan Medical School’s new education and research building on June 7.
The 350,000-square-foot building will be home to more than 70 principal investigators, focused on gene therapy, the neurosciences and molecular medicine. The building, which also provides space for
UMass Chan to train more future physicians, nurse leaders and scientists, is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification for energy efficiency and sustainability.
“Today’s ceremonial ribbon cutting heralds the start of a new, dynamic chapter in UMass Chan’s unfolding narrative; one where we will witness a convergence of hope and expectation; aspiration and realization; intent and impact,” said Chancellor Michael F. Collins.
“The opening of the new education and research building represents a substantial down payment in
furtherance of our institutional commitment to change the course of the history of disease—in Worcester, for the world.”
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, was presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Chancellor Collins and delivered the keynote address.
Dr. Tedros, as he is known, is globally recognized as a health scholar, advocate and diplomat with firsthand experience in research, operations and leadership in emergency responses.
Tedros is the first WHO directorgeneral from the WHO African region. After taking office as leader of WHO in 2017, he has focused the organization on supporting countries in three key areas: promoting health and preventing disease; progressing toward universal health coverage; and preparing for, preventing and responding effectively to health emergencies.
“Although the building is new, its twin purposes—education and research—are not,” Tedros said. “They have always been central to the mission of this school, just as they have always been central to improvements in health globally, and to our work at the World Health Organization.”
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Although the building is new, its twin purposes— education and research— are not. They have always been central to the mission of this school, just as they have always been . . . to our work at the WHO.
ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, P h D
Tedros spoke to UMass Chan’s emphasis on primary care as the essential foundation of any health system and lauded UMass Chan’s impressive track record in research, including the Nobel Prize-winning research on RNA interference that “has opened the door to new treatments against many diseases.”
Other dignitaries who spoke at the program included Mary L. Burns, vice chair of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees and chair of the UMass Building Authority Board of Directors; U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern; Massachusetts Sen. Robyn Kennedy; and Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty.
and school leaders shared the ceremonial ribbon cutting for the new education and research building with Director-General of the World Health Organization, honorary Doctor of Science degree recipient and keynote speaker Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD (center, with scissors).
Above: Rep. Jim McGovern spoke at the ribbon cutting for the new education and research building.
Left: Dr. Tedros with Chancellor Collins.
Opposite: Elected officials
TEDROS
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‘We need you now more than ever’ Gov. Maura Healey tells UMass Chan grads at Commencement
UMass Chan Medical School welcomed family, friends, alumni and faculty on June 2 to its 51st Commencement, celebrating the Classes of 2024 from the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the T.H. Chan School of Medicine.
The ceremony was celebrated on the campus green, now in the shadow of the 350,000-squarefoot, new education and research building, which sits between the Aaron Lazare Research Building and the Albert Sherman Center, that opened June 7.
Healey spoke to the graduates about the challenges they will likely face in their professions moving forward, including financial challenges faced by hospitals and health centers; workforce shortages for physicians, nurses, clinical supervisors and licensed clinicians; and mental stress and burnout.
Despite the challenges, Healey said the graduates inspire optimism for Massachusetts residents and people all over the world.
Above: At the ceremony, 265 degrees and three postgraduate certificates were presented to graduates.
Gov. Maura Healey was presented with a Chancellor’s Medal and delivered the Commencement address. Healey, the 73rd governor of Massachusetts, was elected in 2022 and is the first woman and first LGBTQ+ person to be elected to the position.
“We need you now more than ever. This is a critical time for graduates and for the future of health care. It’s a moment of great challenges, but it’s also a moment of great hope,” Healey said. “It’s not an easy time to enter the health care field, but it is a time when you can make a real and lasting difference.”
Top: Gov. Maura Healey was presented with a Chancellor’s Medal and delivered the Commencement address.
“I want you all to be the ones whose ideas will be heard and to bring the energy for change. Opportunities abound and we need your skilled hands, your caring hearts, your brilliant minds and your growing leadership,” Healey continued.
Honorary degrees were awarded to Ann Kurth, PhD, RN, MPH, president of the New York Academy of Medicine, and Frederick “Rick” Sontag, MS, MBA, co-founder and president of the Sontag Foundation, the Spring-Bay Companies and the Brain Tumor Network.
“ We need you now more than ever. This is a critical time for graduates and for the future of health care. It’s a moment of great challenges, but it’s also a moment of great hope.
GOV. MAURA HEALEY
Chancellor Michael F. Collins presided over the awarding of 167 Doctor of Medicine degrees, eight MD/PhD degrees, 29 Doctor of Philosophy degrees, five Master of Science in Clinical Investigation degrees, 56 Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees, five Master of Science in nursing and interprofessional leadership, three PhD in Nursing degrees, and three postgraduate certificates.
Chancellor Collins said, “I am confident that this group of graduates shall be the bright hope for professions that are saddled with complexity, bureaucracy and resource inadequacies, all of which are daunting the promise of tomorrow.”
Above: Honorary degrees were awarded to Ann Kurth, PhD, RN, MPH and Frederick “Rick” Sontag, MS, MBA.
Left: Medical students Valerie Zhu and Uchechi Nna are all smiles as they line up for the Commencement procession.
JOHN
JOHN GILLOOLY/PEI
UMass Chan and MITRE launch
Health AI Assurance Laboratory with MassTech grant
UMass Chan Medical School and MITRE, an operator of federally funded research and development centers, announced the establishment of the Health AI Assurance Laboratory, a collaborative initiative to advance health artificial intelligence in the public interest. The initiative is at the forefront of efforts in the United States—and the first in Massachusetts—to ensure AI technology in health care is safe and effective for everyone using it.
At the announcement at UMass Chan in April, Yvonne Hao, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Development,
(Left to right) Francis Campion, MITRE; Ozgur Eris, MITRE; Brian Anderson, CHAI; Carolyn Kirk, MassTech; Patrick Larkin, MassTech; Secretary Yvonne Hao; Terence R. Flotte, UMass Chan; Michael F. Collins, UMass Chan; Senator Robyn Kennedy; Doug Robbins, MITRE; Melissa Fischer, UMass Chan; Miles Thompson, MITRE; David McManus, UMass Chan.
presented an award for $555,000 from the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) as part of its Technology & Innovation Ecosystem Awards Program. The Health AI Assurance Laboratory will also receive $137,000 in matching private investment.
“We are committed to researching and developing health AI tools to strengthen our state’s leadership in health care,” said Secretary Hao, who is also co-chair of the state’s Artificial Intelligence Strategic Task Force. “The new Health AI Assurance Laboratory is an incredible opportunity to grow the AI ecosystem by building strategic partnerships and providing career opportunities to students in data analysis, informatics and machine learning. Through the leadership of the researchers at UMass Chan and MITRE, this new lab will help us build a stronger health AI industry in Massachusetts and accelerate responsible innovation for the global marketplace.”
“UMass Chan, a national leader in biomedical research, continues to make great strides to change the course of the history of disease,” said Chancellor Michael F. Collins.
“Together with MITRE and with support from the Innovation Institute at MassTech, current and future health care professionals will be able to create and guide AI technology to fulfill its promise of better, more efficient and more equitable patient care across our communities.”
The Health AI Assurance Laboratory team is led by Program in Digital Medicine founder David McManus, MD’02, MSc’12, the Richard M. Haidack Professor of Medicine, chair and professor of medicine; Adrian Zai, MD, PhD, MPH, associate professor of population & quantitative health sciences; and Miles Thompson, AI assurance solutions lead at MITRE.
Summer Undergraduate Research Program celebrates 35 years
For the 35th year, undergraduate college students traditionally underrepresented in medicine and biomedical research from across the country spent time doing research and receiving mentorship from faculty at UMass Chan Medical School’s Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Every summer, about 30 college juniors and seniors are selected from hundreds of applicants to spend 10 weeks on campus, working side by side with postdoctoral researchers and renowned scientists, networking and learning in depth about biomedical research careers.
The program was co-founded in 1989 by Deborah Harmon Hines, PhD, professor emeritus of radiology and nursing, and former vice provost for school services. Since 1993, the program has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, with additional funding from the Office of Research and the UMass Chan Provost’s Office Summer Undergraduate Research Experience. It is sponsored by the UMass Chan Office of Outreach Programs.
“What distinguishes this program from many others is there is a lot of structure,” said co-principal investigator Brian Lewis, PhD, the George F. Booth Chair in the Basic Sciences and professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology. “The students get opportunities for fantastic research. But we also do professional development activities with them, such as navigating professional relationships, mentoring and the ‘hidden rules’—simple things such as if someone sends you an email, you might want to respond.”
“ The students get opportunities for fantastic research. But we also do professional development activities with them, such as navigating professional relationships.
BRIAN LEWIS, P h D
Since the NIH began funding the program, 753 aspiring scientists have participated, with about half of them going on to pursue graduate education in medicine, biomedical science or related health professions. Among those, 34 have received degrees from UMass Chan and nine are currently enrolled.
Pranoti Mandrekar, PhD, professor of medicine and co-principal investigator, said that having a drive to understand is crucial for admission
Pranoti Mandrekar, PhD; Linhelle Charles; and Brian Lewis, PhD
to the program and for becoming a scientist. “My personal experience as a mentor has been very positive and fulfilling,” she said. “I learn a lot from the students as well.”
Linhelle Charles serves as the program’s administrative coordinator and maintains connections with alumni through social media and email, staying updated on professional news, weddings, births and other life events.
“It’s important to have a relationship with them because part of the program is to be able to network and get the advising that they need for their next journey,” said Charles.
New UMass Chan grant establishes psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners fellowship
The Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing at UMass Chan Medical School is implementing a new statewide fellowship program to expand the pipeline of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners entering the community health center workforce.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services awarded a four-year, $11.6 million grant to the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, with funding received from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Fiscal Recovery Fund to create the fellowship; address the increasing demand for psychiatric and mental health services in the state; help close workforce gaps; and resume new staff training, teaching and licensing in the state’s health and human services that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mechelle Plasse, PhD, received the Student Education Award at the 2024 Educational Recognition Awards ceremony. She is pictured with Joan Vitello-Cicciu, PhD, dean of the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing.
“We’re trying to build capacity within community health centers for psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners,” said Mechelle Plasse, PhD, APRN, assistant professor of nursing and director of mental health nursing programs. “We can integrate specialized nurse practitioners into health center teams to increase access to general health care and psychiatric mental health care at the community level.”
There are more than 200 licensed community health and hospital centers in Massachusetts providing care to more than 1 million patients, a large majority of whom are low income and come from historically underserved populations. The goal of the fellowship program is to recruit and place at least one graduate-level fellow and two student fellows in at least 25 community health centers over a four-year period.
UMass Chan and Lahey partner on new clinical and quantitative research science hub
UMass Chan Medical School and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, part of the Beth Israel Lahey Health system, have signed a research affiliation agreement to create a new quantitative science research hub to improve health outcomes and disparities through population health, digital medicine and health systems science. The research agreement allows the institutions to study clinical data and collaborate on research, and builds on the partnership formed with the establishment of the UMass ChanLahey regional campus, which was approved by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in May 2023
and received accreditation from the New England Commission of Higher Education in January.
“The Medical School’s partnership with Lahey will offer clinical and population scientists, faculty and medical students the opportunity to
Dean Terence R. Flotte; Vice Provost and Senior Associate Dean for Educational Affairs
Anne Larkin; Chief Academic Officer and Regional Executive Dean of UMass Chan-Lahey Anne Mosenthal; and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center President
Susan Moffatt-Bruce
ROB CARLIN
leverage the expertise and clinical data of both institutions to more deeply engage in innovative research that addresses the health care needs of the regional campus and its surrounding community,” said Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine.
As part of the research agreement, Lahey will create the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Science to foster innovation in digital medicine, population health and health care delivery. The institutions will establish a research informatics core for sharing and analyzing de-identified data. UMass ChanLahey faculty and students will also have access to UMass Chan’s extensive research infrastructure,
“The Medical
School’s partnership with Lahey will offer clinical and population scientists, faculty and medical students the opportunity to leverage the expertise and clinical data of both institutions to more deeply engage in innovative research.
TERENCE R. FLOTTE, MD
core technologies and other resources.
“The newly formed Lahey Institute for Healthcare Delivery Science will be a critical driver of our learning health system, advancing high quality clinical care, population health, digital medicine and implementation of clinical discoveries,” said Anne Mosenthal, MD, Lahey Hospital & Medical Center’s chief academic officer, and regional executive dean of UMass Chan-Lahey.
Additionally, with the agreement, Lahey becomes a full partner in the UMass Chan Center for Clinical and Translational Science, which is funded through the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
Trip to the moon for story of boy with ultra-rare UBA5 disorder being studied at UMass Chan
Parents of children with rare diseases go to extraordinary lengths to raise funds and awareness for research that might lead to an effective treatment or cure. Now, the story of 4-year-old Raiden Pham has been to the moon. He has an ultra-rare neurodegenerative disease, known as UBA5 disorder, that UMass Chan Medical School researchers are studying.
The story of Raiden’s journey is included on an indestructible digital time capsule of art, music, film and history, as part of the Lunaprise Moon Museum Mission, which was onboard the Odysseus spacecraft that landed on the moon in February.
“When we think about gene therapy, or any kind of cure or treatment for these rare diseases,
it’s always considered a moonshot, but that’s not the case anymore,” said Tommy Pham, Raiden’s father.
The Raiden Science Foundation, founded by Tommy and Linda Pham in 2021, has raised $1 million of its $4 million goal, which supports research in UMass Chan’s Translational Institute for Molecular Therapeutics and other partner institutions.
The research on UBA5 is led by Toloo Taghian, PhD, instructor in radiology in the lab of Heather Gray-Edwards, DVM, PhD, assistant professor of radiology. Dr. Taghian has identified the top two viral vector constructs for UBA5 expression invivo, which show great promise in successfully delivering UBA5 gene therapy to the targeted cells. ■
Raiden Pham, whose story is now on the moon.
PHAM FAMILY
New deputy executive vice chancellor charts course for campus sustainability
David Flanagan joins UMass Chan as head of facilities
By Jim Fessenden
Since his early days building and remodeling homes, David Flanagan has been on a path to managing increasingly complex construction projects. His career has taken him from small business owner to a project manager on the Big Dig to vice president of facilities at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In December 2022, he joined UMass Chan Medical School as deputy executive vice chancellor of facilities management.
Flanagan began his career in residential construction, first as an apprentice carpenter and later as the owner of his own construction company. A trip with friends to the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, the $7 billion centerpiece of the Boston Harbor Cleanup, galvanized his desire to do more than residential construction.
“That was a real mentoring moment for me,” explained Flanagan, a native of Melrose. “I had a friend whose brother was a civil engineer. He took us to Deer Island to see this mammoth undertaking and I was just in awe. I knew then that civil engineering was for me.”
Using the money he’d saved from his construction business, Flanagan enrolled in the civil engineering program at the University of Lowell (now UMass Lowell). After graduation, he joined Parsons Brinkerhoff on the Boston Central Artery Tunnel Project—the Big Dig— managing a range of utility, heavy civil and building projects.
Flanagan followed his time on the Big Dig with an introduction to complex laboratory design and construction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he managed the
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development of the brain and cognitive sciences neuroscience center. This experience led to an opportunity to join Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he rose to vice president of facilities.
While at Beth Israel he oversaw design and construction of several large biomedical research and clinical care buildings, including the 800,000-square-foot Longwood Center for Life Sciences and the 10-story Klarman Building, which includes 185 inpatient and 65 intensive care beds and multiple operating theaters.
After 19 years at Beth Israel, Flanagan was ready for a new challenge with the university system that jump-started his career in engineering and construction.
“I have a real affinity for the UMass system,” said Flanagan, who now resides in Georgetown and Cambridge with his partner. “They gave me my start in engineering. I wouldn’t be here today without UMass. Joining UMass Chan is a sort of homecoming for me.”
In June, Flanagan and the Medical School campus community celebrated the opening of the new education and research building. Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification for energy efficiency and sustainability, the 350,000-square-foot building foreshadows what Flanagan sees for the UMass Chan campus.
“One of the things that really drew me to UMass Chan is that the campus has all the elements needed to be fully sustainable and resilient,” Flanagan said. “We want to get to a place where the Medical School is fully green.”
“One of the things that really drew me to UMass Chan is that the campus has all the elements needed to be fully sustainable and resilient. We want to get to a place where the Medical School is fully green.”
DAVID FLANAGAN
Since joining the Medical School, Flanagan has taken steps to modernize the business practices of the facilities department to improve the level and quality of services provided and improve collaboration with the UMass Chan community. One of the first things he tackled was development of structured workflows for the delivery of projects and services, including the creation of a customer portal to track and manage capital project requests.
“There was a real hunger on campus for this kind of system,” said Flanagan. “Now we can track projects and we’re engaging with our customers right from the outset so that we can fully understand their goals and unique programmatic requirements. This allows us to be more responsive to our customers’ needs as they pursue the academic, scientific and clinical mission of the institution.”
Toward that end, the new facility includes a geothermal system for heating and cooling that will result in significantly lower carbon emissions— 42 percent less compared to a similar building heated and cooled by fossil fuels alone.
While geothermal systems can reduce the need to burn fossil fuels, energy-saving measures alone won’t make the campus sustainable.
Looking further ahead, Flanagan and his team are investigating decarbonization alternatives to generate the campus’s electrical, heating and cooling needs.
“Our responsibility to support without disruption the academic research and clinical care environment of the UMass Chan campus requires a highly resilient and reliable energy infrastructure,” said Flanagan. “The need for operational continuity is paramount. Alternatives such as solar and wind are not viable due to land constraints. We’d need land half the size of the town of Shrewsbury to meet our electrical needs and a battery the size of Polar Park. Instead, we are investigating new technologies, such as hydrogen and microreactors that are on a path to commercial viability.
“These could take the place of fossil fuel-based energy generation and help fulfill our complex energy requirements in a costeffective and environmentally responsible manner,” said Flanagan. ■
Building for the future
By Michael Cohen
When ground was broken for construction of the new education and research building in late 2020, the world was experiencing the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the future was uncertain. Two things were clear, though: Science would see us through and research at UMass Chan Medical School would play a significant role. Confident in those certainties, the Medical School moved forward with its strategic investment in the future that this new building represents.
Now, at the center of the UMass Chan campus in Worcester, this new symbol of the promise of the future commands attention, rising high above the quad with a glimmering glass façade that illuminates the science within and reflects the ambitions of an institution committed to discovery, learning and healing.
With 350,000 square feet of research and educational spaces to support the missions of all three graduate schools on campus, the new facility opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 7.
“The opening of this building represents the beginning of a new era and the continuation of a vision created some 30 years ago,” said Chancellor Michael F. Collins. “Within this space, our research teams will collaborate to tackle some of the most challenging diseases, while our students will gather with peers on their journeys to becoming some of the best health and science professionals in the world. The building will become a hub of campus activity, with ample space for formal lectures and casual meetups.”
The new structure, which sits on the west side of the main campus quad between the Aaron Lazare Research Building and the Albert Sherman Center, has enough laboratory space to accommodate more than 70 principal investigators and their teams, along with advanced core facilities to support basic
research, translational studies and clinical trials of new therapeutics developed on campus and around the world.
Research labs will be occupied by members of the Horae Gene Therapy Center and the departments of molecular medicine, neurology, neurobiology, neurological surgery and psychiatry.
“The expectations and goals for the design were very high, because, sited between two existing research and education buildings, this project represents the final unifying link between the structures on the main campus quad,” said Charles Hibbard, associate principal at ARC, who led design in collaboration with ZGF Architects. “The physical, programmatic and social connections the space offers will enhance and increase collaborative research and learning opportunities for the entire UMass Chan community.”
This unifying design led to a defining architectural feature: a monumental staircase that rises to the second level inside and outside the building, divided only by a glass wall. Inside, the stairs link the lobby to a concourse that spans the length of the building. Outside, the staircase rises from the ground-level plaza and culminates in a large terrace with furniture and plantings that will be open three seasons of the year. Pedestrian bridges connect the concourse to the buildings on both sides, creating the first
interior walkway that links all of the main Medical School buildings on the Worcester campus.
In another collaborative design strategy, the laboratories are arranged using a novel “neighborhood concept,” with a central core of benches and research bays surrounded by support spaces.
“The intent of this configuration is to foster more closeknit communities of researchers that encourage collaboration and discussion,” said David Hamilton, principal at ZGF. The write-up desks lab members use to document their work are located outside of the research space, separated by floor-to-ceiling glass walls that bring sunlight into the lab areas. This configuration allows staff the flexibility to have a coffee or enjoy food while working. (In most labs, the write-up desks are within the active lab area where no food or drink is allowed.)
“The design is forward looking, creating spaces that respond to the way people work and live today.”
There are also gender-neutral bathrooms throughout the building and, on levels three through nine, dedicated wellness rooms provide private space for personal activity, such as lactation or self-administration of medications.
David Flanagan
Deputy executive vice chancellor of facilities management
Prominent gathering spaces throughout the building support collaboration away from lab benches and serve as spaces for respite and interaction. Located prominently at the corner of each upper level are “living rooms” that function as shared break rooms, while on the first level, a flexible conference center and café bring researchers together in a central gathering place.
“A lot of the design is forward looking, creating spaces that respond to the way people work and live today,” said David Flanagan, deputy executive vice chancellor of facilities management at UMass Chan.
Another first for the campus will be the installation of a large, automated biorepository system to store hundreds of thousands of tissue samples, keeping them preserved at minus 80 degrees Celsius, and readily accessible for ongoing research.
The samples will come from patients of UMass Memorial Health and other clinical systems who have elected to donate samples for research and/or participate in clinical trials. The new biorepository will dramatically expand UMass Chan’s capacity to participate in multisite clinical trials for potential treatments for rare and common diseases.
Efficiency gains
The new building is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification for energy efficiency and sustainability from the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification process is underway and is expected to take several months.
“This is now the most energy-efficient building on campus,” Flanagan said.
A major element of the LEED Gold design is the way the building will be heated and cooled, featuring the first geothermal system on campus.
The heart of the geothermal system is an array of 75 boreholes, each six inches in diameter and 500 feet deep, drilled into the bedrock below the
A monumental staircase rises to the second level inside and outside the building, divided only by a glass wall.
main campus green. Water circulating through a closed-loop system of pipes in these holes will help heat and cool the building by extracting thermal energy from the ground in the winter and transferring heat from the building into the ground during the summer months.
Known as a hybrid ground-source heat pump system, the technology works on the same principle as a window-mounted air conditioner that blows air across tubes filled with a refrigerant under pressure to cool the air in a room and blow the heat outside.
Now, imagine if that window air conditioner could be flipped around on demand, so that the cold air blows outside and the hot air blows into the house. That’s essentially how the geothermal heat pumps will warm and cool the building.
The network of underground pipes connects the boreholes to an eight-module array of heat pumps in the basement of the new building. Water from the boreholes circulates through one side of those heat pumps, while two additional closed-loop systems of water circulate through the other side of the heat pumps, to carry chilled and heated water throughout the building.
Each heat pump has reversing valves capable of changing the flow of heat exchange back and forth. Almost every day, some areas of the building will require heat while others will require cooling to maintain appropriate temperatures. The flexibility of the system allows some heat pumps to be in simultaneous heating and cooling mode while others operate in heating or cooling mode.
“The constant temperature of the ground is like having a head start to heat and cool the building,” said Suzanne Wood, associate director of facilities for sustainability and campus services. “With a relatively low input of electricity to power the pumps and compressors, it keeps the building in proper balance and dramatically reduces the need for burning fossil fuel.”
Over the course of a year, the geothermal system will provide 88 percent of the heat for offices, laboratories, and educational and public spaces, and 50 percent of the cooling needs for the building. Steam and chilled water from the existing campus power plant will help meet peak demands for heating and cooling. The power plant also supplies electricity to the new building.
By comparison, if the new building were served exclusively by the campus power plant, it would generate approximately 5,800 tons
Brian Duffy and John Emond inside one of the lab spaces in the new building.
of greenhouse gas emissions annually. The geothermal system will cut that carbon footprint by approximately 2,400 tons per year, according to an energy analysis of the building conducted by engineering consultants BR+A. That’s a 42 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Managing airflow
The work of delivering heated or cooled air through the building is done by a sophisticated energy-efficient air handling system. A series of large air handling units, which look like small, two-story metal buildings, are located in the top-level mechanical penthouse. They draw fresh air in through louvered openings in the building’s exterior walls for ventilation, dehumidification, heating, cooling, filtration and humidification of the occupied spaces.
Powerful fans blow the heated or cooled air through a network of ducts down to each room, laboratory and public area. A second network of exhaust ducts draws the air back out of the occupied spaces and vents it through stacks on the roof. No air is recirculated within the building, which helps ensure internal air quality.
“Because the system uses 100 percent outside air, we don’t want to exhaust the heated or cooled air. That would be a tremendous waste of energy,” said Brian Duffy, senior director of facilities for capital projects at UMass Chan.
To prevent that waste, energy recovery wheels are key to the design of the system. Pairs of energy recovery wheels, each 16 feet in diameter, are installed within the stacked air handling units and spin between the intake and exhaust streams.
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The new education and research building: the highlights
Air-handling units
Heated or cooled air is delivered through the building by a sophisticated air handling system. Heat recovery wheels capture thermal energy before air is exhausted.
‘Living rooms’ Located prominently at the corner of each upper level are “living rooms” that function as shared break rooms.
Curtain wall
The curtain wall exceeds the state’s building code for thermal performance by 22 percent, meaning it is highly effective at limiting heat loss in winter and reducing heat gain in summer.
D Lab write-up areas
The configuration of the lab write-up desks outside the lab space allows staff the flexibility to have coffee or enjoy food while working.
Monumental staircase
A monumental staircase rises to the second level inside and outside the building, divided only by a glass wall.
PHOTOGRAPHY
The new education and research building: by the numbers
354,061 square feet
3,000 linear feet of lab bench space
500 foot depth of geothermal bore holes
188 offices weighing
720 lab write-up spaces
3,295 tons 7,218 pieces of steel
183 foot building height
In keeping with the design objective of providing maximum natural light for the occupants, the “living rooms” located throughout the building are surrounded by glass.
The wheels are made of triangular wedges, like slices of a pizza, composed of specialized materials that absorb thermal energy or moisture. As the wheels spin, they capture energy and humidity from the exhaust flow of the upper unit and transfer it to the intake air flow below. The wheels will recover 80 percent of the energy used to heat, cool and humidify the building.
The system will move 392 million cubic feet of air through the building on an average day. (That volume of air is the equivalent of approximately 5,000 hot air balloons!)
Also essential to the building’s efficiency is the exterior façade, which is covered with 1,520 sections of a customized system known as a unitized curtain wall. It’s made of prefabricated rectangular units, each with three layers of glass set in insulated aluminum and steel frames.
flat surface. On one end of most curtain wall sections, a metal fin extends from the frame to cast shadows on the glass and limit the solar heat gain from direct sunlight. Areas of the outer glass have vertical stripes made of a thin layer of ground glass, called frit, applied to the surface to create a visual feature.
“It was an outstanding design and construction team. And we are very thankful for every trade union partner who worked on this building. Without their contributions, this building would not have been the success that it is.”
Barbara J. Kroncke Executive director, UMBA
“We wanted to bring in a lot of natural light to the building, but that has to be managed for temperature control,” Duffy noted.
The outer layer of glass is set at an angle, creating a sawtooth façade, rather than a
The curtain wall exceeds the state’s building code for thermal performance by 22 percent, meaning it is highly effective at limiting heat loss in winter and reducing heat gain from the sun in summer.
“It’s the first use of a triple-pane system on campus,” Duffy said.
Unexpected challenges
The University of Massachusetts Building Authority (UMBA) oversees construction of major buildings on all of the University’s campuses and issues bonds to finance those projects.
UMBA worked closely with UMass Chan leadership in early 2020 planning for the new building and launching the public procurement process for architectural and construction management services. When COVID-19 hit, the state went into lockdown and many construction projects shut down.
“We fought to keep this project going,” said Barbara J. Kroncke, executive director at UMBA. “In spite of the pandemic, people still had to feed their families, so we wanted to keep people working. We also understood and supported the chancellor’s view that the research to be done in the new building was so important, not just for the people of Massachusetts, but for people all over the world, that we had to keep going.”
The project moved forward, but it was not business as usual.
Working through the pandemic meant instituting strict health and safety protocols to protect people on site. It meant the myriad design and construction management meetings had to move from in-person to online. And it demanded a new approach to address global supply chain disruptions that threatened to shut the project down.
Prior to the pandemic, the best practice for construction projects of this scale was a “just in time” model for the purchase and delivery of materials and equipment. Orders would be placed in sequence and trucks would deliver materials to the site on or around the same day they would be used, thereby reducing the need to store or pay for products before they were needed.
That model was shattered by pandemic-driven supply chain disruptions, as semiconductor “chip” shortages, factory shutdowns and international shipping restrictions made many products and customized systems hard to get. Lead times for many materials and systems soared from weeks to months, even years in some cases.
“We made the decision that if we could get the material on site, we would,” Duffy said.
For items that could be procured quickly, the Medical School’s property on South Street in Shrewsbury became a secure warehouse, storing millions of dollars of materials for a year.
For specialized technologies and customized mechanical systems that needed to be built for the project, orders were placed early and staff from the general contractor, Shawmut Construction and Design, traveled to manufacturing facilities across North America and Europe to witness production processes and validate schedules.
“It was a ‘trust but verify’ approach,” said John Emond, operations project executive at Shawmut Design and Construction. “It’s rare for vendors to have these kinds of site visits and it worked in our favor. They wanted to put on a good show for us to prove they were advancing our orders and meeting our specifications.”
Building with a diverse workforce
Through flexible management and creative collaboration among the design, construction and campus teams, the schedule adjusted to the supply chain realities and the building was completed on schedule and on budget.
“It was an outstanding design and construction team. We are very thankful for every trade union partner who worked on this building. Without their contributions, this building would not have been the success that it is,” she said.
That success was shared across a diverse workforce, Kroncke noted.
“From the very beginning of the project, even before the design team or construction manager are selected, we embark on a diversity strategy,” Kroncke said.
UMBA’s compliance team evaluates a project and sets goals for workforce participation by women and people of color in various design and construction trades. UMBA then works closely with regional labor organizations, vocational schools, pre-apprenticeship programs and companies owned by women or minorities to make them aware of the opportunities to bid on work.
Over the course of the project, more than 1,000 individuals worked in various capacities on site.
UMBA workforce goals for the project called for 15 percent of the jobs to be filled by people of color and 6.9 percent by women. The project exceeded those goals, with people of color
comprising 21 percent of the workforce and women comprising 8.1 percent.
On the contracting side, nearly $50 million of awards went to companies owned by women or people of color, exceeding the goal of 13 percent set by UMBA by 5.2 percent.
“Given everything that we had to deal with along the way, I think the team worked extremely well together to get the job done,” Duffy said.
Shawmut’s Emond agreed, saying, “It has always felt like a partnership. The caliber of folks who worked on this project was exceptional.”
The public health mission of the building also permeated the project team. It was more than just another job. “I know that all of us on the design team feel very proud of this project. It’s extremely rewarding to be involved in something that is in pursuit of life-saving research and pushing the boundaries of science for the benefit of humanity,” said ARC’s Hibbard.
Flanagan, who joined UMass Chan in December 2022 after 19 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said it initially gave him pause to become responsible for such a major project already underway. “After I got here, it didn’t take me long to understand that the project team was highly qualified and the job was trending in the right direction,” Flanagan said. “The value this building brings to our campus can’t be overstated.” ■
Opposite, from the top: Gathering spaces that foster collaboration and a sense of community are prominent throughout the building. Pictured here, top to bottom, are the outdoor terrace accessible three seasons of the year; a café area adjacent to a coffee shop on the first floor; and common areas adjacent to the labs on each floor.
Above: The laboratories are arranged using a novel “neighborhood concept,” with a central core of benches and research bays surrounded by support spaces.
FAITH NINIVAGGI
Meeting the public health challenge of climate change
By Michael Cohen
Public health is inexorably linked to the environment. From the growing range of neglected tropical diseases spreading around the globe to the impact of extreme heat and violent storms, the toll on human health wrought by climate change is well documented. As the commonwealth’s only public medical school, UMass Chan Medical School is working to safeguard the health of the campus and the communities that surround it.
As part of the institution’s strategic planning, sustainability programs across the Medical School continue to grow and include initiatives such as planting native perennials that support pollinators, decarbonization projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and educating the next generation of physicians about the public health impact of climate change.
Above: Coinciding with Earth Month 2024, UMass Chan released its long-term strategic sustainability plan to dramatically reduce its use of fossil fuels.
Envisioning a carbon neutral future
In 2021, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker issued the executive order “Decarbonizing and Minimizing Environmental Impacts of State Government” that established a statewide goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Guided by this order and coinciding with the Earth Month celebration in April, UMass Chan released its long-term sustainability strategic plan to dramatically reduce its use of fossil fuels.
“This is a vital issue,” said David Flanagan, deputy executive vice chancellor of facilities management. “Our strategy will be to increase efficiency and adopt new technology in generation, distribution and energy recovery systems, while never losing sight of the need for resiliency.”
Originally built in the 1970s, the Medical School’s power plant has been a source of strength and stability, providing virtually uninterrupted electricity, steam and chilled water to sustain the health care, educational and research operations on the Worcester campus. Today, while updated and burning primarily natural gas, the power plant is the school’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
cooling and electricity for every building on campus for an entire year.
The team evaluated all existing mechanical systems and operating procedures on campus and proposed a comprehensive list of initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
The result is a five-phase, 20-year road map with options to consider for mechanical system upgrades, adding renewable energy generation like solar arrays and geothermal systems, and eventually considering new fuel options for the campus power plant.
“We need to achieve carbon neutrality while maintaining uninterrupted operational continuity for UMass Memorial Medical Center’s patients and the Medical School’s ongoing education and research enterprises,” Flanagan said.
“We have shown that we can develop smart buildings, with high energy efficiency to support our research needs, while still making progress on decarbonization and reducing our impact on the environment.”
Suzanne Wood Associate director of sustainability and campus services
In the fall of 2022 as UMass Chan sought to determine the carbon footprint of the Worcester campus, it partnered with ARUP, a global professional services firm with significant expertise in energy modeling and sustainability, to develop a detailed decarbonization plan.
Working closely with campus facilities management staff and a community task force of faculty and students, ARUP engineers assessed the campus carbon footprint and estimated the hour-by-hour demand for heating,
Driving for change
Beyond the power plant, another significant source of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to UMass Chan comes from gasoline-burning vehicles used by people driving to campus. To address that issue, the Medical School regularly promotes carpooling and public transportation options, and continues to invest in electric vehicle charging capacity.
“We have a rapidly growing EV community,” said Kortni Wroten, sustainability and energy manager at UMass Chan. “So, we are actively engaging with EV owners to support our shared goals of increasing EV ridership and maximizing the number of electric vehicles able to charge on campus.”
The campus has 92 EV charging spots for faculty, staff, students and UMass Memorial Medical Center patients and visitors and there are plans to add more in the coming year.
Hoping to increase the number of EV drivers who commute to campus, the Medical School hosted its second EV “Ride and Drive” event, co-organized by Recharge Massachusetts, a nonprofit public/private partnership sponsored by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. More than 200 people attended, taking test rides in electric vehicles and trying an electric bicycle.
There are 197 registered EV drivers at UMass Chan. In 2023, the total hours those drivers charged while on campus was the equivalent of burning 30,146 gallons of gasoline in an internal combustion vehicle. That translates to greenhouse gas savings equal to the carbon sequestered from 25,231 trees grown for 10 years.
Training the next generation of physicians
As UMass Chan is working to protect the physical environment of the campus and surrounding communities, understanding the health consequences of climate change is being integrated into the T.H. Chan School of Medicine curriculum.
“We are experiencing the adverse health effects of climate change expanding and impacting all physiological systems,” said Manas Das, MD, MS, associate dean of undergraduate
medical education at UMass Chan. “We are threading content related to the effects of climate change on health and disease across all four years of our curriculum.”
Dr. Das organized a task force of faculty and students to develop climate-change curriculum content and facilitate its implementation as an evolving element of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine’s Vista curriculum.
“We are reaching out to leaders of specific courses and clerkships, providing resources, inquiring about current coverage and working with them to integrate this content further,” Das said. “As a sub-domain of the societal forces in health and disease focus topic in Vista, this will be required curriculum, through all four years.”
Medical students have helped drive the climate agenda on campus, Das noted. Since 2021, a volunteer group of students has participated in the Planetary Health Report Card initiative, which was launched in 2019 by students at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.
The report card was conceived as an advocacy tool to prompt medical schools and affiliated health professions schools to educate the next generation of clinicians about the public health impacts of climate change so they are better able to care for their patients.
“The faculty has been very receptive,” said medical student Amos Armony, a member of the curriculum task force and a leader on the report card effort. “There are a lot of students here working very hard on this issue. I think our generation is more focused on climate change because it will affect all of us and our patients, so the push has to come from the people whose future we are fighting for.”
Planting seeds of change
Also new this year, UMass Chan is building its first Wellness Farm, a 40-foot hydroponic farm that can produce up to three tons of produce each year. Located near the school’s Office of Well-Being in Anderson House on Plantation Street, the farm is funded by a $420,000 Food Security Infrastructure Grant from the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
The hydroponic farm will support nearly 13,000 plants and will use fewer than five gallons of water each day. It will be the first site on UMass Chan’s campus to include an onsite solar array, which will be installed on Anderson House to help offset the farm’s power demand.
Medical students Dalena Huynh, Elizabeth Johnson, Neha Kamireddi, Celine Cano-Ruiz and Melanie Fu dig in to the 2024 community garden, a project conceived and maintained by students on the Worcester campus.
“The freight farm—so called because it is built inside a shipping container—aligns with key elements of our sustainability and climate action plan, as it relates to food systems and supports our energy goals,” said Suzanne Wood, associate director of sustainability and campus services at UMass Chan.
The farm is expected to be staffed for 20 hours a week by UMass Chan volunteers and local high school students through a partnership with 2GetherWeEat. The harvest will be divided between the Max Baker Resource Center food pantry for students at UMass Chan and food pantries at the Worcester public schools in the North Quadrant that are supported by UMass Chan, as well as with other community members facing food insecurity.
Additionally, thanks to the initiative of a group of students, faculty and staff who formed a planning committee called Pollination Association, UMass Chan is now a certified pollinator campus. The first formal pollinator garden will be built this year on the hill below the power plant facing Lake Quinsigamond.
Students have also taken the lead in establishing and maintaining a community garden on campus, with the produce harvested going to the Max Baker Resource Center.
Building sustainability into growth
UMass Chan has had a formal sustainability program since 2004, focused on the built environment, operating processes and community awareness to encourage people to make more sustainable choices in their daily lives, on campus and at home.
For example, plumbing retrofitting projects have helped reduce the annual usage of potable water by 23 million gallons. Electrical consumption has been reduced by LED lighting upgrade projects, replacing thousands of bulbs and fixtures across the campus. LED fixtures consume 40 to 60 percent less energy than legacy fluorescent or incandescent lighting.
Occupancy sensors are now the standard for lighting, heating and cooling of offices and conference rooms. Heat recovery wheels in several buildings allow fresh air exchange
while retaining most of the heat in the building. Variable speed fans, with sash sensors, on the fume hoods in the laboratories also save energy.
In 2012, a high-efficiency gas-fired turbine and an associated heat recovery system was added to the campus power plant. Since natural gas burns more cleanly and offers added energy capacity compared to oil, its use is an important step forward in lowering greenhouse gas emissions from the plant and toward decarbonization.
Because of projects like these, even though the campus has grown significantly in the past 15 years, energy use per-square-foot of building space has dropped almost 30 percent.
“I think it is a really important message to say that sustainability and sustainable elements don't have to be exclusive of research or clinical care,” Wood said. “We have shown that we can develop smart buildings, with high energy efficiency to support our research needs, while still making progress on decarbonization and reducing our impact on the environment.” ■
Suzanne Wood and Kortni Wroten
Clockwise from top left: Kimberly Yonkers, MD; Danny Winder, PhD; Roger Davis, PhD, FRS; Mark Johnson, MD, PhD; Terence R. Flotte, MD; Guangping Gao, PhD; and A.M. Barrett, MD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FAITH NINIVAGGI EXCEPT FOR PORTRAIT OF A.M. BARRETT
Collaboration by design
By Susan E.W. Spencer
What do you get when you bring together a group of researchers and clinicians with disparate interests and disciplines? If the history of UMass Chan Medical School is any indication, you get great science.
For more than 30 years, the Medical School has traced its most notable successes to interdisciplinary collaboration. Beginning with the establishment of the Program in Molecular Medicine in 1989, the leaders of the institution planned co-location of varied investigators, knowing it could lead to groundbreaking discoveries. With the completion of the new education and research building, that approach will once again be strategically applied to conquering some of the world’s most challenging diseases.
“This building plays a key role in the future of our institution, as outlined in our strategic plan,” said Chancellor Michael F. Collins. “By co-locating strategic research programs and leveraging the power of collaboration, we will be able to fulfill our vision of life-changing therapies for some of the most intractable diseases we face.”
The model of neighboring research communities in the new 350,000-square-foot building will bring together under one roof the UMass Chan Program in Molecular Medicine; the departments of neurology, neurological surgery, neurobiology and psychiatry; the Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center; and the Horae Gene Therapy Center.
The building represents a continuation of an institutional vision articulated in 1990 “to spark a research growth spurt across the entire campus, as measured by recruitment, external funding, scientific discoveries, and honors and awards,” that led to the establishment of the Program in Molecular Medicine, as Ellen S. More, PhD, professor emeritus of psychiatry, wrote in The University of Massachusetts Medical School, a History: Integrating Primary Care and Biomedical Research.
The Program in Molecular Medicine is “a different kind of department,” said Roger J. Davis, PhD, FRS, the H. Arthur Smith Chair in Cancer Research and chair and professor of molecular medicine. “We have people in the department in basic research and people who are involved in clinical trials. It makes for the ability to do very rapid transfer of new research findings into clinical relevance. Basic scientists can deal with people who are doing clinical trials and get their advice for advancing their research, and clinicians can get insights from basic scientists.”
Such collaboration has already led to progress in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, fragile X syndrome and diabetes, and on pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and Ebola, according to Dr. Davis.
Medicine, said the building’s focus on bringing together a network of neuroscience researchers with those exploring potential new treatment technologies was by design.
“One of our most distinctive areas of achievement and of future opportunities in gene therapy has been for neurologic diseases—both those that affect adults like ALS and those that affect children like Canavan and Tay-Sachs disease,” said Dr. Flotte. “Many of the gene therapy platforms that we put forward as neurologic therapies have also facilitated a deeper understanding of the nervous system.
“ These buildings are real opportunities. They help us to recruit new faculty and provide new space that we can develop for paradigm-changing technologies.
Terence R. Flotte, MD
“We’ll be right in the heart of the campus, and I think it’s going to amplify our ability to collaborate with others,” Davis said.
Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the T.H. Chan School of
So, we have assigned the Department of Neurobiology to the new building. We are co-locating them with neurology and gene therapy, which enables the creation of a sense of community among investigators.”
An exciting new metabolomics facility will also be housed in the building, with potentially far-reaching impacts on finding treatments for conditions from heart disease to diabetes, cancers and rare diseases, Flotte said. With support from the Stoddard Charitable Trust, UMass Chan investigators will have access to multimodal mass spectroscopy and other integrated equipment to profile small molecule metabolites in cells and better understand predictive biomarkers and pathways underlying diseases.
“These buildings are real opportunities,” said Flotte. “They help us to recruit new faculty and provide new space that we can develop for paradigm-changing technologies.”
The co-location of strategic research programs is intended to foster collaboration and spur development of life-changing therapies.
UMass Chan is already a leader in gene therapy research, said Guangping Gao, PhD, the director of the Horae Gene Therapy Center and the Li Weibo Institute for Rare Diseases Research, who is looking forward to the move. Currently, faculty members of the gene therapy center are spread across several buildings.
The new building's location in the heart of the campus is designed to bring members of the community together.
“This move into the new building, putting all the gene therapy center members under one roof, is going to make a huge difference,” said Dr. Gao, the Penelope Booth Rockwell Professor in Biomedical Research and professor of microbiology. “It not only promotes our highly collaborative research environments, but it’s also very important to enhance research efficiency with all equipment and everything in one place.”
The gene therapy center’s research, which could provide insights into thousands of diseases, has several treatments in the pipeline, Gao said. The bigger space will increase opportunities for collaboration among investigators and graduate student trainees.
Gao has seen gene therapy research grow during his 15 years at UMass Chan, and now, he said, “The state-of-the-art facility will facilitate our research capability and the speed to move from proof of concept to clinical translation. It will also facilitate our dream to develop therapies to treat the patients and change quality of life for them and their families. That’s what we’re really looking forward to.”
Some of UMass Chan’s recent leading advances such as a promising gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease are equally attributable to close collaboration with neurosurgeons who perfect complex techniques for delivering the therapy to the brain and other intricate procedures, often in very young children.
“This state-of-the art facility is a testament to the incredible commitment that UMass Chan has made to the study of the nervous system, the treatment of its disorders and the power of ‘team science’,” said Mark Johnson, MD, PhD, the Maroun Semaan Chair in Neurosurgery and chair and professor of neurological surgery. “For the first time at our institution, principal investigators in the Department of Neurological Surgery will be able to work side by side, sharing resources, exchanging ideas and collaborating on a daily basis. We fully expect that our inclusion in this community of worldclass scientists will foster collaborations that will enhance our research and yield new and transformative discoveries in our field."
“
This move into the new building, putting all the gene therapy center members under one roof, is going to make a huge difference. It not only promotes our highly collaborative research environments, but it’s also very important to enhance research efficiency with all equipment and everything in one place.
Guangping Gao, PhD
While gene therapy is a major focus for treatment research at UMass Chan, collaboration between the departments of neurology and neurobiology has also led to advances in multiple neurodegenerative diseases, according to Daryl A. Bosco, PhD, professor of neurology.
“We have projects together on microglia and neuroinflammation, which is a major pathogenic process, and now that has culminated in a publication that was just accepted,” Dr. Bosco said. “So, it’s really exciting to be able to have proximity to their labs and other people in neurobiology.”
Bosco and A.M. Barrett, MD, chair and professor of neurology, agreed that the open layout, with areas where people working in the lab can see each other and write-up stations are interspersed with offices outside the lab, will increase morale and a sense of community among researchers and trainees.
“I would say that the power of this environment, which is very intentional, is one that is going to help people to optimize their productivity,” Dr. Barrett said. “And I think it’s going to help the emotional aspect of our culture to have access to this kind of a building.”
What’s more, Barrett and Bosco said, the Medical School’s investment in neuroscience and basic and translational research helps recruit top new researchers, including those working in critical areas like Alzheimer’s disease.
One of the new researchers attracted by UMass Chan’s model of cross-discipline collaboration is Danny G. Winder, PhD, the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research Chair I and chair and professor of neurobiology. Dr. Winder is a renowned expert in the field of addiction neuroscience, founding director of the Vanderbilt [University] Center for Addiction Research and principal investigator on the multi-institutional Vanderbilt AUD Research and Education Center (VAREC), a National Institutes of Health effort to develop innovative approaches to solving alcohol use disorders, in which UMass Chan participates.
“The neurobiology department is focused on gaining a basic understanding of the building blocks of the nervous system and understanding how it works both in normal and abnormal situations,” Winder said.
The department’s rich history of working with multiple model systems allows rapid progress to be made and new biology to be uncovered quickly, he said, adding that proximity in the new building to the neurology, psychiatry and neurological surgery departments and clinical insights from their investigators will reduce barriers for moving those discoveries toward potential therapeutics.
“My own work focuses heavily on alcohol use disorder, and we are really excited about the new building because it’s well designed to allow us to do the sorts of experiments that we plan to undertake with the new VAREC grant,” Winder said.
The experimental suites in the building will facilitate researchers’ ability to do high-end neuroscience to explore neural circuits in animal models. For example, the department has ordered miniature microscopes that can monitor the fluorescence signals coming from specific populations of neurons.
“We can monitor the activity of those specific cells and see them in real time. So, it’s really game-changing technology in the field of neuroscience that we’re excited to be able to take advantage of,” said Winder.
Winder’s department also collaborates with the Department of Psychiatry on areas of common interest, including sleep disorders and how alcohol controls behavior in the brain.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for our researchers,” said Kimberly A. Yonkers, MD, the Katz Family Chair in Psychiatry and chair and professor of psychiatry. “The facility is state of the art, and it will allow researchers who may be in different departments but are doing neuroscience research to be close to one another.”
How will UMass Chan leaders know whether the promise of the new building is fulfilled?
“I think the most important measure is to see our faculty doing impactful research. Some of those researchers will be working on model organisms and some will have a translational focus,” said Flotte. “It all supports our public service mission: Let’s see the work that creates new paradigms that change the course of disease.” ■
Opposite: The design of the building not only encourages collaboration among the individuals who work in the building, but also fosters a sense of connection to the entire campus community.
Above: Research teams began moving into their labs in early June.
Without question, the emergence of the new education and research building, with its stunning glass façade, along the western edge of the main campus green has already begun to transform our physical environment in a lasting way. Dozens of energized and vibrant research teams—those expert in the neurosciences, gene therapy and molecular medicine—are getting to work in sparkling new labs and collaborative spaces, advancing investigations that will unlock new scientific understanding, treatments and cures for some of the most challenging conditions that people face.
But in the case of this building, some of its greatest impacts are invisible. Beneath the grassy quad closest to the Medical School’s main lobby is a complex geothermal system consisting of 75 boreholes, each 500-feet deep, that now contain an underground network of pipes to heat and cool the new nine-story facility in the most efficient and environmentally friendly manner possible. Of course, this is noteworthy because buildings dedicated to biomedical research labs are notoriously large energy consumers, so we take particular pride in knowing that our newest building is on track to achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, representing our commitment to achieving best practices in sustainability. Compared to a similar building heated and cooled by systems that use fossil fuels, UMass Chan’s new building will reduce carbon emissions by 42 percent.
Inside this bright and airy space, we are bringing together interdisciplinary research teams and learners who, through their work, offer hope to the world. Maybe you or someone you love relies on such a spark of hope when faced with a difficult diagnosis. Countless people around the globe who are facing diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment or cure find hope in biomedical research. Hope for a cure. Hope for a new discovery. Hope for more time.
Countless people around the globe who are facing diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment or cure find hope in biomedical research.
Hope for a cure. Hope for a new discovery. Hope for more time.
In turn, our faculty and broader research community draw inspiration and keen insights from patients and advocates. We are all partners in this noble- and serious-minded quest. As scientists and caregivers, we aspire to discover evidence-based advances in a collaborative manner that we know from experience leads to better outcomes. Our new education and research building offers an ideal setting to pursue this calling.
In the months and years to come, I will continue to reflect on the ways in which the new education and research building represents our collective ambition and commitment to discovery, learning and healing.
Michael F. Collins, MD Chancellor and Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences
Chancellor Michael F. Collins with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, at the opening of the new education and research building in June.
@umasschan
@umasschan is the magazine of UMass Chan Medical School, one of five campuses of the UMass system. The magazine is distributed periodically to members, benefactors and friends of the UMass Chan community. It is produced and published by the Office of Communications.
Readers are invited to comment on the contents of the magazine, via email to UMassChanCommunications@umassmed.edu; please include “@umasschan magazine” in the subject line.
Chancellor and Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences: Michael F. Collins, MD
Executive Deputy Chancellor, Provost and Dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine: Terence R. Flotte, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Communications: Jennifer Berryman
Editor: Ellie Castano
Design: Dan Lambert
Photography: UMass Chan Office of Communications except as noted Office of Communications staff contributors: Samuella Akaab, Joanna Alizio, Jim Fessenden, Bryan Goodchild, Janjay Innis, Lisa Larson, Hallie Leo, Colleen Locke, Hayley Mignacca, Pat Sargent, Susan E.W. Spencer, Sarah Willey
