The Westmead medical research community has welcomed the Rudd Labor\u00a0Government\u2019s commitment of $12 million dollars towards the completion of Stage 2 of the new Westmead Millennium\u00a0Institute (WMI) research facility.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the announcement during a visit to the Westmead Hospital campus on Sunday\u00a0(August 18th).\u00a0The funding will allow commencement of Stage 2 of the new building following the completion of Stage 1 due in early 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe funding will expand the capacity of the Westmead Campus to deliver health, education and economic benefits to\u00a0Greater Western Sydney (GWS) and beyond by expanding research, medical, dental and post graduate student training,\u00a0with new jobs and enhanced translation of research outcomes from the laboratory bench to the patient and community,\u201d said\u00a0Executive Director of WMI, Professor Tony Cunningham.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overwhelming benefit to the community is that ground-breaking research into Australia\u2019s major health problems such\u00a0as the National Health priorities of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental health can expand,\u201d said Professor\u00a0Cunningham.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The new WMI will provide shared medical research facilities for the Westmead Research Hub (WRH), which includes the\u00a0WMI, the Children\u2019s Medical Research Institute, the Kids Research Institute, Westmead Hospital, the Children\u2019s Hospital\u00a0Westmead, the University of Sydney and other universities.<\/p>\n
Currently under construction, Stage 1 of the new WMI building will cost $110 million.
\nCovering 17,000-square metres, the building will accommodate the WMI\u2019s wet and dry research labs, and shared core high\u00a0technology facilities for genomics, flow cytometry, cell imaging and cell and gene therapy research, used by the Westmead\u00a0research institutes and hospitals for research and diagnostic purposes.<\/p>\nStage 2 of the new WMI building will cost a total of $32 million when complete and will provide an additional 6,000 square\u00a0metres of research, education and meeting facilities, and an auditorium.
\nStage 1 of WMI will generate approximately 900 jobs during construction. The development of Stage 2 will create a further\u00a0170 construction jobs.<\/p>\nCombined, Stages 1 and 2 will accommodate 200 additional researchers including 20 clinician scientists who will become\u00a0national leaders in their disciplines.\u00a0It is expected that Stage 1 and 2 combined will inject over $140 million into the economy, further contributing to the Western\u00a0Sydney region\u2019s economic base.<\/p>\n
WMI is making major advances in discovering the genes underlying susceptibility to melanoma, multiple sclerosis, blindness\u00a0in the elderly and diabetes.\u00a0It is also making progress towards the cure of Type 1 diabetes through pancreatic islet transplantation.<\/p>\n
The WMI originated from research centres based at Westmead Hospital and the University of Sydney in 1996 and quickly\u00a0became one of Australia\u2019s largest and most productive medical research institutes, quadrupling its research productivity.<\/p>\n
Over the past 17 years, the WMI has grown considerably from approximately 80 staff in 1996 to over 430 in 2013.\u00a0Over the past five years, due to lack of space, the WMI has had to turn away five new research groups and over 30\u00a0research scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis large \u2018critical\u2019 mass of healthcare research in the WMI and across the Westmead campus helps to attract the best\u00a0doctors to the region and provides high quality jobs,\u201d said Professor Cunningham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Westmead medical research community has welcomed the Rudd Labor\u00a0Government\u2019s commitment of $12 million dollars towards the completion of Stage 2 of the new Westmead Millennium\u00a0Institute (WMI) research facility. The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the announcement during a visit to the Westmead Hospital campus on Sunday\u00a0(August 18th).\u00a0The funding will allow commencement of Stage 2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2446,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categories":[19],"class_list":["post-2493","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}