Just three years after dedicating a building devoted solely to cancer research, Johns Hopkins Medicine broke ground last week for a second cancer research building on the East Baltimore campus. Speakers at the groundbreaking ceremony, held on March 3, were U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Maryland Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and Baltimore City Council President Sheila Dixon, as well as university President William R. Brody; Raymond A. "Chip" Mason, chairman of the board of trustees of the university; Edward Miller, dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Martin Abeloff, director of Oncology at the School of Medicine.

The new cancer research facility, rendered here on the right, will be a mirror image of the Bunting-Blaustein Building at left. Construction is to begin in May and be completed in May 2005.

Construction of the $80 million cancer research building, known as CRB II, is expected to begin in May and be completed by May 2005. It will be located on Orleans Street, west of Broadway, next to the three-year-old Bunting-Blaustein Cancer Research Building. The Clark Construction Group is the construction manager.

"The need for new facilities arises out of our success," said Miller before the event. "We need this new facility to accommodate the steady growth in numbers of our faculty securing gifts or grants to support the fight against cancer. The unraveling of the human genome combined with the explosion in information technology has opened many new approaches in that fight," he said. "Fortunately, our scientists have been leaders in transforming our understanding of cancer and almost daily are making new advances against these diseases." According to Miller, the space will accommodate growth in interdisciplinary collaboration.

"While the cancer research building we dedicated in December 1999 made room for scientists from our Kimmel Cancer Center, this new structure will provide room for scientists from other departments also engaged in cancer research, an effort that has become profoundly interdisciplinary," Miller said.

HDR Architecture, the firm that designed the Bunting-Blaustein Cancer Research Building, is designing the new adjoining structure as its mirror image. An interstitial design again will allow for space above the laboratories to accommodate utilities and other electronics, thus enabling repairs and equipment upgrades without disruption of laboratory activities. Additional floor-to-floor height in the laboratory areas allows two floors of office space for every one floor of laboratory space, resulting in 10 stories of office space at each end of the building, with five stories of laboratories in between. The building will be approximately 272,000 gross square feet.

In November 2001, the comprehensive cancer center at Johns Hopkins, which includes the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building for clinical care, situated on the east side of Broadway, was named the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in honor of businessman and philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, who gave $150 million for cancer research and patient care. It was the largest single gift to any Johns Hopkins institution.