A festive groundbreaking on May 7 celebrated a landmark development for cardiovascular research at UCSF. Construction has begun on the state-of-the-art Cardiovascular Research Building (CVRB) at UCSF Mission Bay – a facility designed to foster the multidisciplinary approaches and collaborations at the core of UCSF's Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI).

Scheduled to open in 2011, the five-story, 236,000-square-foot building will provide space for the largest proportional increase in faculty recruitment since the establishment of the CVRI in 1957 – doubling both laboratory space and number of faculty.

The location on UCSF's burgeoning Mission Bay campus will provide ready access to outstanding laboratories, advanced genomic and proteomic technologies, whole body imaging, and other leading-edge facilities already in place.

In addition to three floors of laboratories, conference and teaching space, and shared core facilities, the CVRB will house the new UCSF Center for the Prevention of Heart and Vascular Diseases, and an outpatient cardiac facility aimed at predicting and preventing the diseases.

Operating the backhoe, CVRI Director Shaun Coughlin makes the first dig for the new Cardiovascular Research Building at Mission Bay.

For more information about the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute, contact Michael Chinnavaso at 415/502-5872 or MChinnavaso@support.ucsf.edu.

Photo by Noah Berger