Bio Building Boom

View the 2010 Minnesota Biosciences Industry Directory.

When the University of Minnesota proposed building the Biomedical Discovery District, its leaders intended to facilitate serendipitous interactions between scientists that could lead to new bioscience ideas, research, and innovation. That objective moved from theory to practice just a month after occupants settled into the district’s Medical Biosciences Building late last year.

Running into each other in a hallway this winter, scientists in immunology and neurobiology struck up a casual conversation about their work. Soon they discovered some connections between their separate research on ataxia, a degenerative nervous system disease. In short order, they devised some experiments that will study the immune system’s response during the development of the condition.

“They realized they could put their two areas of expertise together and potentially learn something new and exciting,” says Matt Mescher, director of the Center for Immunology. “Neither one probably would have thought of it on their own.”

Findings from new experiments like those on ataxia could have a powerful impact on Minnesota’s bioscience industry. It would happen like this: The experiments’ results might attract grants to fund clinical trials on new diagnostic tools or therapies. Discoveries from the trials could be developed into treatments or medical devices, which could be licensed or spun off into new companies. Ultimately, those companies would generate royalty income for the university while creating jobs and strengthening the state’s bioscience prowess.

Minnesota has a strong history of strength in the biosciences. It's where medical breakthroughs like the world’s first simultaneous kidney and pancreas transplant took place, and it's home to medical device giants like Medtronic, Inc., and St. Jude Medical, Inc. Yet there is growing concern that other states are doing more to support their biosciences industries and that these burgeoning sectors could be siphoning off talent, capital, and businesses from Minnesota.

To prevent that from happening, the university convinced the Minnesota Legislature that it could help power the state’s bioscience industry with innovation. The plan included clustering scientists from multiple but intersecting disciplines in state-of-the-art research buildings. In 2008, the legislature and Governor Tim Pawlenty approved $292 million in bonding to develop the U’s Biomedical Discovery District on the eastern end of campus, directly across from the new Gopher football stadium.

When one more new building and an expansion of an existing one are completed in 2014, the district’s facilities will together total 700,000 square feet of flexible research space that will be occupied by more than 1,000 faculty and staff seeking cures, treatments, and preventions.