Melbourne biomedical research hub gets green light
Construction will kick off in the next few months on a $207 million state-of-the-art healthcare research centre in Melbourne’s Biomedical Precinct after it was approved by the Victorian state government and a building permit was issued by the Yarra City Council.
The 11-storey Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD), to be built on the site of St Vincent’s Hospital’s former Aikenhead building in Fitzroy on the Melbourne CBD fringe, will focus on finding medical solutions for chronic illnesses.
It will form part of the sprawling Melbourne Biomedical Precinct running from East Melbourne to Parkville in the north, one of the leading precincts of its kind in the world, bringing together hospitals, research institutes, healthcare companies and universities.
Adelaide’s $3.6 billion BioMed City Innovation District and Perth’s Murdoch Precinct are other examples in Australia, while overseas examples include the Cambridge Science Park and Liverpool Science Park in England.
The centre will be funded by the Victorian and Commonwealth governments, St Vincent’s Health Australia, the nine-partner organisations collaborating on the project (including the universities of Melbourne, RMIT, Swinburne and Wollongong) as well as philanthropic donations.
It will replace an existing research hub that has operated on a modified scale at St Vincent’s Fitzroy campus for the past 10 years and comes amid a wave of investment into new healthcare facilities in Australia from private hospitals to laboratories and life science centres.
Angela Nolan, chief executive of St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, said the new purpose-built centre would fast-track vital medical research, so it could be used to help patients sooner.
“At St Vincent’s, we have a long, proud history of tackling the toughest and most complex health problems – something that is at the core of the ACMD vision,” she said.
The centre will include 3D-printing laboratories, a human kinetics lab, special insulated rooms that enable the development of sensitive hearing and vision technologies, engineering workshops to produce medical device prototypes, and robotics that can be used to fast-track clinical trials, as well as collaborative spaces for students and researchers.
It will also house a dedicated teaching facility focused on educating future biomedical research leaders and incorporating multiple seminar and tutorial rooms, a clinical simulation laboratory, and a large lecture theatre over two levels that can host national and international conferences and major events.
Designed by Denton Corker Marshall architects, the centre is expected to be completed by 2024.
Centre chief executive Erol Harvey said the facility would bring a wide variety of skill sets together in a dedicated building to “solve some of the world’s toughest healthcare challenges – something that has never been done before”.
