Coffee talk built in to U. of C. building

April 26, 2006

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter

Despite all the high-tech equipment and state-of-the-art labs at the University of Chicago's new research building, chemistry professor Don Levy is most excited about an atrium next to a coffee shop in the building.

That's because the sparkling three-story atrium sits at the center of the new building, where he hopes the physicists, biologists and chemists who eventually use the building will meet, chat and brainstorm ideas in ways never done before on campus.

"It's so important that these people get together,'' he said. "I want it to be bustling with life.''

The goal of the $200 million Ellen and Melvin Gordon Center for Integrative Science is to increase collaboration between researchers in different fields and, in turn, hopefully produce exciting research.

Chemistry professor Don Levy views the ''Continuity'' sculpture and atrium at the heart of the Gordon Center for Integrative Science (inset: exterior) on Monday. He hopes the atrium boosts collaboration. (JEAN LACHAT/SUN-TIMES)

The 400,000-square-foot center, which will be dedicated today, is the second largest building on the South Side campus, smaller than only the Joseph Regenstein Library. The university will also announce a gift of $25 million from the Gordons, who head Tootsie Roll Industries. Ellen Gordon sits on the visiting committee to the Biological Sciences Division at the school.

Ideas for collaboration percolate

In a statement, Ellen Gordon said institutions such as the U. of C. have brought humanity closer to the day "when there is less suffering and pain in the world.''

The center will bring together 100 senior scientists and 700 students, researchers and staff who were formerly situated in at least a half-dozen other buildings on campus.

While scientists in different fields at times worked together on specific projects, officials are hoping it will be an everyday occurrence at the new center, simply because of proximity.

Some scientists who began moving into the building last summer have already come up with ideas for collaboration in part because of the layout of the building. Lab space, for example, is shared among multiple scientists, students and researchers. In older buildings, scientists often worked in isolated areas.

40% of space underground

"It's over informal discussions when the bell starts ringing," said Erin Adams, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

She is planning on collaborating with a colleague to use a technology called EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) to study at the molecular level how a set of immune cells, called gamma delta T cells, detect infection or cancer in the body. How signals from outside the cell trigger a response within the cell is "one of the really big mysteries in immunology,'' she said. "The proximity to such diverse research within the new building encourages such cross discipline collaborations."

There are other features of the building that will greatly enhance research. Some 40 percent of the building's space is actually underground on two floors that stretch beyond the footprint of the building. That's because many chemists need vibration- and noise-free areas to do experiments.

More chemical fume hoods

The building also has a $31 million heating and ventilation system. A longtime chemist, Levy is nostalgic for the smell of chemicals, but to maintain clean air on campus, "it shouldn't smell like a chemistry lab,'' Levy said.

Chad Brouwer, a chemistry doctoral student from Evergreen Park, said the new lab he works in has twice as many fume hoods than the previous lab. That's necessary because he uses toxic metals such as thallium in studying the use of gold as a catalyst for chemical transformations.

In an interview Tuesday, he held in his hand a five-gram bottle of a compound containing thallium -- a substance commonly found in chem labs -- that could be lethal to two people, he said.

"The facilities we have make the handling of this and other chemicals less worrisome since the ventilation provided is so good,'' he said.

dnewbart@suntimes.com