BRI Moves Forward
Abrar Qureshi, MD, and Stephanie Tyler, both of Dermatology, and Elizabeth Karlson, MD, Rheumatology, celebrate the BRI at its inaugural Research Retreat last month.
The BWH Biomedical Research Institute is getting a new look. The BRI welcomed six new members to its Research Oversight Committee (ROC), unveiled its new intranet site and detailed plans for new research space in May before the research community.
“This truly is an exciting time,” Thomas Kupper, MD, chairman of Dermatology and BRI director, said during the May BRI Faculty Research Forum Kick Off. “The BRI is enhancing the overall environment for research at Brigham and Women’s, fostering scientific affinity interaction among investigators, laboratories and departments and maximizing funding opportunities.”
Kupper announced the newly elected members of the ROC, the BRI’s primary leadership committee charged with evaluating priorities and identifying opportunities. Matthew LaVoie, PhD, and David Soybel, MD, were elected to the ROC to represent basic research; Selwyn Rogers Jr., MD, and Michael Conte, MD, to represent clinical research; and Christine Albert, MD, MPH, and Dan Solomon, MD, MPH, to represent population science. These new members join department, center, program and platform representatives on the ROC along with BWH and PHS leadership, who serve as ex officio members.
Also, the BRI staged a soft launch of its new intranet site for the research community, available at http://bwhbriresearchintranet.partners.org/ The site will formally launch in the fall. This new research intranet and its accompanying set of tools will make it easier for the research community to access and share information and will empower members of the research community to actively manage their content internally and externally. Training for the Interowoven content management system will begin in June for research groups. Contact Charlie Yi at cyi@partners.org for more information.
Lastly, Barbara Bierer, MD, senior vice president for Research, shared a project update on construction plans for converting the Massachusetts Mental Health site into a state-of-the art research facility for the BRI community. “In five years, we’ll celebrate the opening of a fantastic new building,” she said.
BRI leaders are working with the project developers on a building master plan and floor plans for the 12-story facility that will add 233,000 square feet of wet lab space, 93,000 square feet of dry lab and office space and 295 underground parking spaces. While initial local approvals are in place, the complex permitting process is projected to take two years, with construction scheduled to begin in May 2008.
“The future of the BRI shines brightly,” BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA, said in kicking off the BRI’s day-long research retreat, also held last month. “Through BRI, we will achieve our vision of integrating the richness of our scientific enterprise with the excellence of our clinical mission, to provide a focus and home for training and education, and to foster new programmatic initiatives around essential questions that only now are we in a position to ask and to answer.”