The Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences Building on the WSU Spokane campus will be dedicated at 1:30 p.m. this afternoon with several hundred attendees expected. The building is the new home for the area’s premier center for health sciences education and research.
The Spokesman Review has more information on the dedication here and here.
Support from the Washington State Legislature has made the Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences Building possible. In 2009 the Legislature approved $4.34 million for planning and design funding for the building and in 2010 committed an additional $3.5 million to planning and design to expand capacity for medical education and research. In 2011 the Legislature allocated $35 million in construction funds and $1.8 million in operating funds for the building. A ground breaking ceremony was held in October 2011 for site work to begin and the Legislature in 2012 approved an additional $37 million in construction funds to complete the building.
The building will be home to the College of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences. The new facility provides for increased capacity for medical education on the WSU Spokane campus and allows for the consolidation and expansion of the College of Pharmacy, moving remaining pharmacy students from the Pullman campus to centralize the program on the Spokane campus. Physicians, pharmacists, and health professionals will now practice and learn together under one roof.
Researchers from the College of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences will occupy the labs in the new building. Their investigations will lead to better health for many. The College of Pharmacy will occupy about two-thirds of the new building, conducting research on the top two floors. The second floor of the building will be home to Medical Sciences researchers, with the basement providing several laboratories where students can study anatomy using cadavers.
With construction of the Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences Building completed in November, researchers, faculty and staff are setting up their work in the new facility. Students will move in in January.
UPDATE: Today elected officials, stakeholders, business leaders and the Spokane community joined the WSU Spokane campus in dedicating the Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences Building. The dedication program took place on the first-floor breezeway of the new building with more than 400 in attendance. Here Chancellor Lisa Brown welcomes all to campus and introduces the facility.
