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Wisconsin State Journal News Article on Professor Lloyd Smith
Mon, 11/03/2008 - 3:45pm — root
Institutes for Discovery Designed for Inspiration
Wisconsin State Journal Article - By DEBORAH ZIFF, 608-252-6234, October 31, 2008.
Wisconsin State Journal Article - By DEBORAH ZIFF, 608-252-6234, October 31, 2008.
Sitting in the Dane County Regional Airport on his way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, little did UW-Madison chemistry professor Lloyd Smith know he was about to have an encounter that would significantly change the course of his life. Smith had met biomolecular chemistry professor James Dahlberg once or twice before but did not know him well. But stuck together in the confines of the airport waiting room on their way to the same conference, the two struck up a conversation about their work. Smith had a fledgling company that needed new life and Dahlberg had recently-patented technology that he wanted to commercialize.
The chance encounter more than 15 years ago sparked Third Wave Technologies, a business venture that was sold this year for $580 million. Scientists and researchers say it is frequently in these casual or unexpected moments that inspiration strikes. The question of how best to design a building that would facilitate such eureka moments was foremost in the minds of the creators of the new Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, who didn't want a traditional office building, but a space that would give scientists a nudge toward greatness.
The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, currently a yawning hole at the intersection of Campus Drive and University Avenue, is a $150 million research complex of unprecedented scope in the state of Wisconsin. The building, set to open in 2010, consists of twin institutes: the publicly funded Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the private Morgridge Institute for Research. Though the researchers who will work in the building have not yet been chosen, the goal is to assemble scientists from different backgrounds who will collaborate to make breakthroughs in human health and welfare.
“Madison's really good at interdisciplinary research. It's done all over campus,” said Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and chair of the Morgridge Institute for Research Board. “But the facilities on this campus generally have not been built for that purpose. They've been built for a department. Then they go and do interdisciplinary work in the facilities and they kind of jury-rig them to do what they want.” The architects said they looked to scientists for input on this project, more so than any other building in the history of campus, said George Austin, project manager.
What they found was that scientists say their best ideas happen over a cup of coffee, a pint of beer or in passing on the sidewalk. “It's really when they're outside of their normal routines that they'll jog their minds to go in new directions,” said Laura Heisler, program developer for the Morgridge Institute, the private portion of the Institutes. The features of the building were designed to promote those sorts of run-ins: a way of manufacturing what would only occur by chance under normal circumstances.
The building will only have three research floors, for instance, with the idea that if it was taller it would be less likely for scientists to bump into one another. There will be an atrium in the center of the building so that people can see from one floor to the next. Intentionally, there are no long hallways where a scientist could scurry to his or her lab without surfacing in a public space. A “town center” on the first floor will be a public space and will feature a restaurant, soda fountain and symposium space, where there will be foot traffic by scientists as well as members of the public. Smith said he didn't think the collaboration with Dahlberg would have happened had they not happened to meet each other at the airport. “My normal life path doesn't cross his,” Smith said. “This is a really big university.
That particular venueput us in that situation.” Smith said it's important to feel comfortable around other scientists, especially when working across disciplines where a researcher may be out of his or her field of expertise. Seeing people frequently in a building helps to develop that comfort level. “If you don't have those collisions with people and the opportunity to interact in an informal way, those things just don't happen,” he said.
Food science professor Michael Pariza works in the microbial science building, which opened last year, and has some similar architectural elements to WID, like open hallways and neighborhoods of researchers. “When you walk into a central corridor and you look down and see someone on the floor below or above, you do remember things you probably wouldn't otherwise remember,” he said. But, he said, “I don't necessarily see the light bulb moment happening because you're in a great building.”
Perhaps more important is that the work of researchers fit together. In his case, one of Pariza's aha! moments came as he walked along the Lakeshore Path nearly 20 years ago, mulling over a research question. Poultry science professor Mark Cook ran past and stopped to say hello. They began chatting about Pariza's research problem: he knew a fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) was having an effect on the immune system, but didn't know how. Cook, who was studying the influence of nutrition on the immune response in animals, was just the man Pariza needed. That blossomed into a partnership and subsequent discoveries, yielding dozens of patents in dietary supplements, treatment for autoimmune diseases and more. “At the end of the day it's personal chemistry,” Pariza said. “You really have to both be bringing something independent to it to kind of complete the picture.”
Copyright ©2008, Capital Newspapers.
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