Silverman Hall: To Bring Scientists Shoulder to Shoulder for Optimal Results

It was an amazing story to begin with. In the late 1980s, Northwestern chemistry professor Rick Silverman assigned what seemed to be a straight-forward project to a visiting scientist: to make a set of compounds that could be used to explore how a particular biological molecule carries out its function. In the process, they ended up discovering a compound that alleviated nerve pain. After 16 years of testing, the powerful new drug came on the market as Lyrica™ in 2005. It has now been prescribed for more than one million people. (See Crosscurrents, Fall 2005.)

Now the story takes a bright new path. At the end of March, ground was broken for a new center for biomedical research. It will bring together chemists, biologists, and engineers to develop new medicines and diagnostics.

The lead donor? Rick Silverman, John Evans Professor of Chemistry. Together with his family, Silverman has pledged a portion of the royalties he receives from sales of Lyrica to help build the $100 million center. The Richard and Barbara Silverman Hall for Molecular Therapeutics and Diagnostics is expected to be occupied and running by fall 2009.

At the groundbreaking, Silverman said he had been able to have “a glorious career at Northwestern because of the collaborative culture” of its scientific community.

“This new center is a very ambitious endeavor to bring together researchers from different disciplines to work on critical problems that can’t be solved by one group alone,” said Thomas O’Halloran, Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry and director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, which will be a lynchpin of the building. “If you look at the history of science, a number of important breakthroughs happened when scientists from very different fields realized they had overlapping interests.”

According to O’Halloran, members of five departments from Weinberg and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have participated in the building’s design—expecting fruitful “collisions” to happen by its very layout. Unlike the traditional walled-off spaces in which scientists work in isolation, these labs will open onto one another, with natural light shining from one end of a floor to another. Chemists will be next to engineers who will be next to biologists. Faculty offices will be clustered together at the center of floors. Meeting rooms and informal gathering places—including two two-story spaces—will encourage both planned and spontaneous conversations within and across disciplines.

Silverman Hall, four stories above ground and one below, will house 16 research groups and about 250 faculty, staff, and research assistants. Every floor will be physically connected to adjacent research buildings, encouraging scientists in those spaces to share the most advanced equipment and exchange ideas with researchers in the new building.

Biochemist Thomas Meade will run a state-of-the art imaging center on the first floor. His research group contains chemists, biologists, engineers, and clinicians. “I have 16 collaborators here as opposed to 3 [at my previous university]”, said Meade, the Eileen M. Foell Professor in Cancer Research. “That’s what brought me to Northwestern.”

For information about making a gift to support research in Silverman Hall,or any purpose within Weinberg College, please contact Stephanie Banta, Director of Development, at 847-491-4585 or s-banta@northwestern.edu.