Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | June 10, 2024 | wbjournal.com PHOTO | COURTESY OF UMASS CHAN MEDICAL SCHOOL Breaking new ground Two new Worcester healthcare buildings, costing nearly half a billion dollars, aim to improve quality of and access to health care down Plantation Street and away from the university's main campus for 30 years, his department now takes up three floors of the new building. "It's a very exciting opportu- nity to have not the week-to-week interaction, but the day-to-day interaction by bumping into our colleagues," Davis said. "Science evolves through interactions with people." Davis' re- search zeros in on the role of stress in the development of diseases, primarily focusing on diabetes and cancer and his department's research as a whole has programs researching well-known diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and fragile X syndrome as well as infectious diseases including Ebola, bird flu, and Epstein-Barr virus. To aid this research, the NERB will house the medical school's new Mass Spectrometry Facility, which will be utilized in part to measure metabolites within the body to look at disease and identify molecules to be used for drug BY MICA KANNER-MASCOLO WBJ Staff Writer F rom workforce shortages to burdensome paperwork to staff burnout, Central Massachusetts providers are no stranger to the mounting struggles experienced throughout those working in the U.S. healthcare system. Amid these realities, Worcester is seeing two of its major players in the healthcare sector establishing new build- ings aimed at addressing long-standing industry concerns. UMass Chan Medical School has unveiled its $350-million New Education and Research Building designed to advance disease research while UMass Memorial Health is in the midst of constructing a $125-million, 72-bed acute care facility. Both of these new facilities sit about a block away from each other, on the same campus home to both UMass Chan's headquarters and the premier hospital in the UMass Memorial system. Whether it's tackling the causes and treatment of disease or affording emergency room patients better access to care, these new Worcester buildings look to help Central Massachusetts residents live healthier lives. Great expectations To change the course of history of disease is a tall order, but UMass Chan Chancellor Dr. Michael Collins isn't shying from it. When conceptualizing the idea of the NERB, Collins decided this ethos would encompass the type of education and research to take place within it; every department in the NERB has a focus on disease, both rare and common, with the goal to eventually improve the lives of those living with them worldwide. Construc- tion began on the nine-floor, 350,000-square- foot building at the end of 2020 with a budget of $350 million. Today, the new build- ing houses more than 70 principal investigators across the Program in Molecular Medicine, the Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooper- ative Research Center, the Horae Gene erapy Center, and the departments of neurology, neurological surgery, and psychiatry. For Roger Davis, professor and chair of the Program in Molecular Medi- cine and chair in cancer research, his department's move into the NERB is a welcomed change. Having been located Dr. Michael Collins, chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School Roger Davis, chair of the Program in Molecular Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School UMass Chan Medical School in Worces- ter unveiled its $350-million New Education and Re- search Building in a June 7 ribbon cutting ceremony.

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