Setting a Course for BioDiscovery
Marquette seeks to redefine the south edge of campus as a visionary BioDiscovery District.
Through an inclusive, rigorous 18-month process, Marquette’s campus master plan created a road map for Marquette’s capital improvements over the next 10 to 20 years.
And among the plan’s major priorities is a project promising to redefine the south edge of campus as a visionary BioDiscovery District serving the needs of two key academic departments, biological and biomedical sciences.
To replace outmoded research spaces siloed in separate buildings, the district is envisioned offering modern collaborative laboratories for two disciplines that together accounted for 36 percent of research funding at Marquette in scal year 2017, says Dr. Richard Holz, dean of the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences. Collaborative opportunities would extend to student research and teaching in a modern complex that could look like the renderings shown. “This is going to have a huge impact on our undergraduates. We want to make sure we have first-rate facilities for our students and faculty,” says Holz.
A CROSS-COLLEGE COLLABORATIVE NEXUS
The new complex would bring together two of the university’s biggest undergraduate programs. Biomedical sciences in the College of Health Sciences is the most popular major on campus, while biological sciences* in the Klingler College ranks 11th with 250 students. Together, they account for 12 percent of Marquette’s 8,000 undergraduates. Championing the project with his counterpart, Dr. William Cullinan, dean of the College of Health Sciences, Holz also notes that approximately one in six undergraduates takes biology courses that would bring them into the facility.LEADING THE RESEARCH EFFORT
Together, biological and biomedical sciences combine for $6 million in annual grant-funded research. With the two departments under one roof, those numbers would be expected to climb significantly, in support of Marquette’s goal of doubling research efforts university-wide by 2020 and into the future. “It’s really exciting that we could be able to solve problems that are currently unsolvable because the right people aren’t together in the room,” says the dean.FULLY EQUIPPED
Replacing Marquette’s Service and Wehr Life Sciences buildings, the district would be a combined research and teaching facility with laboratories equipped to support the entire spectrum of student-faculty learning and research uses. “We’re trying to have an open concept so students can interact across disciplines and that can spur new and innovative research directions and ideas,” says Holz.TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Dr. Edward Blumenthal, chair and associate professor of biological sciences, and Dr. John Mantsch, chair and professor of biomedical sciences, have led a working group of professors from the two colleges to explore research themes with high potential for valuable collaboration, including biology in human health, response to a changing environment and response to stress, topics with much relevance to major problems facing our society. “The response to stress theme is very broad,” says Blumenthal, “covering everything from the response of ecosystems such as tropical rain forests to stress, to how humans and animals respond to stress. That’s something many of us in the two departments are working on.” When completed, the BioDiscovery District would bring these like-minds together. “We’re all scientists,” says Mantsch. “When you’re assigned the task of addressing real-world problems, when you get people who can really think about it in that way and can work collaboratively, there’s real potential here.”
Interested in supporting the development of the BioDiscovery District? Contact Kelli Rael at kelli.rael@marquette.edu.
— Martina Ibáñez-Baldor, Comm ’15
