Foundation stone laid for new building for biomedicine in Basel

Foundation stone laid for new €365 million building for biomedicine in Basel Keystone-SDA

The foundation stone for the new Centre for Biomedicine building was laid on the University of Basel's Life Sciences Campus on Friday. The laboratory building, which will cost CHF365 million ($444 million), will host around 700 researchers from 2030/2031, the university announced on Friday.

According to the press release, the building will bring together all the units of the Department of Biomedicine, which were previously spread across several locations. It is ideally located in the immediate vicinity of the Biozentrum, the university hospitals and the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich.

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“With its 11 floors and a height of more than 40 meters, it will be a powerful center for translational research, aiming to translate laboratory findings into medical treatments,” said the press release.

The new building project is being realised by Implenia as total contractor. This model guarantees the University of Basel a binding contract price and therefore a high level of cost certainty, writes the university.

Much more expensive than originally planned

With this model, the university aimed to avoid the new Biozentrum building debacle. Nevertheless, this new building will also be massively more expensive than originally planned – by CHF153 million.

This was accompanied by an increase in the loan guarantee from the two sponsoring cantons of Basel-City and Basel-Country from CHF106 million to CHF182.5 million. The two cantonal parliaments approved this equally divided guarantee amount in 2023.

The Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel conducts research at the interface between basic science and medical application. The main areas of research range from cancer and immune research to regenerative medicine and neurosciences.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac

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