Former NORCC building--new research site.

A landmark biomedical research facility currently under construction in Thunder Bay recently took another step closer to becoming a reality.

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The future cardiac and cancer research facility on Monroe St. recently completed phase one of a $6.6 million retrofit of the former Northwestern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre's three-floor, 54,000-foot site, thereby staying true to the predicted construction schedule.

The site has seen a great deal of work in recent months, due in no small part to the sheer number of changes needed to alter the building from a care services facility to a cut-ting-edge research centre.

"If you were to walk through the building today, you 'would see a considerable amount of the demolition, which is important and involves reducing the building down to studs in the vast majority of areas," says Michael Power, vice-president of Regional Cancer and Diagnostic Services at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC). "We've also done lead remediation in the radiation environment."

The completion of this phase also involved refurbishing the building's various ventilation, and water and power systems in order to suit the particular needs of a state-of-the-art research environment and to render the site wholly self-reliant for its basic day-to-day requirements.

"The building itself was not standalone, from a life-cycle standpoint," says Power. "It worked off the building systems at Port Arthur General Hospital and when the severance occurred, part of the remediation exercise was to bring these systems up to 21st-century standards, especially because of the pre-clinical imaging lab. We had to make sure that these systems were in place, and the building is capable of functioning independently now."

This completion signals the imminent arrival of up to 42 research professionals and eight scientists, including Dr. Rui Wang, the vice-president of research at Lakehead University. These individuals are expected to make use of the newly completed research and wet labs in the building's third floor.

Phase two, slated to begin in November, involves the development of a specific space in the building's basement for a pre-clinical animal lab, the Lake Superior Centre for Regenerative Medicine and ongoing demolition and construction of common areas. The third and final phase entails the construction of the facility's space for Genesis Genomics and a molecular medicine research area, which Power describes as having a footprint of approximately 20,000 square feet. This is expected to wrap up in the spring of 2007, at which point it will be officially open. Power estimates that the refurbishing and renovation of the existing site represents a considerable cost savings for the contributors to the project, which include multiple levels of government and industry partners. Whereas the project is slated to cost $6.6 million--with phase one coming in $100,000 under budget--a bare minimum of $25 million would have been required to establish a new site.

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While an official name has yet to be determined, discussions are still ongoing regarding what the facility's official title will be.

"It's going to be branded, and we're in the midst of dialoguing with the local medical school, Lakehead University and Philips Medical Systems, who is a major partner," says Power. "That will be birthed sometime this fall."

Once fully complete, the facility will be able to house up to 350 science professionals, including the likes of chemists, biologists, biophysicists, clinician scientists, certified radiology and nuclear medicine physicians as well as engineers; the molecular medicine department alone is expected to employ 200 people.

"It's a real cross-section of health science researchers," says Power. "That's what's novel about this. As opposed to working in independent labs, we'll be putting the right people into a professional inter-disciplinary setting, and we think the world will be our oyster."

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business