NorthBay biz visits Novato’s Buck Institute, which is expanding its reach into age research with the construction of its new Regenerative Medicine Center.
After his football career ended, an interest in the burgeoning field of biotechnology took him to Cleveland, where he directed the office of technology management at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Prior to returning west, he was executive vice president/COO at Athersys, Inc., an Ohio-based biotechnology company that employed proprietary stem cell, gene therapy and chemistry technologies to develop a broad range of pharmaceuticals.
“I came to the Buck Institute because I was impressed with the expertise that was already in place here,” Kovach said at the time. “I see my job as being a ‘matchmaker’ with others in the biotech area who are conducting research on aging and age-related disease. The completion of the Human Genome Project caused an explosion of knowledge. What that means for us is, we’re on the verge of major advances in the treatment of conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The trick is—and essence of my job is—to make the right connections among those funding and those doing the work, to take the fullest advantage of the work already supported by the NIH [National Institute of Health] and other funding sources.”
Money talks
The funding that kick-started this new building came two years ago, in May 2008, when the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded $20.5 million to the Buck Institute for Age Research to build what it termed a “CIRM Center of Excellence” on the Buck’s Novato campus (on the hill above Fireman’s Fund). The new building would be the institute’s second research facility, nearly doubling its research capabilities. It also required Buck to raise matching funds to complete.
“What this building is going to do for us is vastly increase the collaborative possibilities this sort of research so desperately depends upon,” says Kovach, who in April segued from president/COO of Buck Institute to instead concentrate on its Institutional Advancement Program, which focuses on fund-raising and industry outreach.
“We’re going to be able to add 11 faculty positions and the research teams that go with them, which will bring all sorts of new possibilities into play. Obviously, we’re grateful and proud that CIRM has that much respect for our scientific programs—not to mention our vision and our plans for the new facility. We’re already working to identify all the potential funding sources that will let us make the most of this opportunity, an opportunity that carries with it great potential benefit for the future health of Californians.”
The CIRM was established in 2004 by way of the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, that’s also funded new facilities at Stanford University, University of Southern California, the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine and several of the University of California campuses, from Los Angeles to Davis.
Kovach’s prior experience definitely comes into play here. At Athersys, he negotiated the closed drug discovery and development deals with worldwide pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Medarex.
Building the dream
The new building at Buck will encompass nearly 66,000 square feet and is expected to house up to 150 people, including faculty and research teams. Construction was started with minor ground work in March, while RFPs were sent out for the initial grading and foundation work. That phase will be followed by the core shell building work and the laboratory fitouts.
“We expect a completion date in March 2012 for this two-year project,” says Ralph O’Rear, vice president, facilities and project director. “We’re planning to do the work in such a way as to allow early occupancy of part of the building, before the whole of it is complete. In fact, we’re anticipating a number of efficiencies through the construction process, partly because of the economic times. There are a lot of people out there in the construction business ready and willing to do the best work they can as efficiently as possible. That’s really good for us.”
A native of the Midwest (he grew up near Indianapolis, Ind.), O’Rear spent his late teen years in Phoenix, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area after a hitch in the Army Reserves. “I worked in real estate and construction in Oakland and San Francisco. My wife and I moved to Sebastopol in 1980. I worked for Fireman’s Fund and Lucas Film prior to joining the Buck Institute in February 1998.”
O’Rear reminds that the sleek look of the present day campus comes directly from the imaginative work of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect I. M. Pei, whose “poetic” design work is already incorporated into the new structure (as part of Pei’s original master plan), which will replicate a building already in existence. The firm of Perkins & Will is the project architect for the new building. The contractor for the core/shell phase has yet to be determined (as of press time), but O’Rear expects the job to directly employ up to 300 people during construction. “Then the ‘multiplier effect’ adds in a great number of support jobs—maybe another 150 or so.
“That compounding effect makes this is a pretty big project for the Novato area. We’re planning on pre-qualifying the laboratory construction specialists, since we have such specific requirements for the interior design. Much of that will be determined by the individual types of research that will be conducted. This building is designed to extend the basic research that’s already been done, with all the new tools and technology designed to support that research.”
O’Rear also notes that the cost per square foot will be about one-third lower than similar costs for the dozen other projects CIRM funded in 2008. “The fact that the Buck Institute has already paid for land entitlements—and already has approved architectural and design plans in place—contributes to the lower cost [approximately $608 per square foot versus $934 per square foot] and would enable Buck to have the facility built and online within the two-year timeframe required by CIRM.”
Laying the foundation
The Buck Fund is a Marin County mainstay, established at the death of Beryl Buck in 1975. She was the widow of pathologist Leonard Buck, who was the son of rancher/oil man Frank Buck, who had amassed quite a fortune. Dr. and Beryl Buck had lived in Marin County since 1935. Childless, they were determined to see their inheritance benefited the place they loved. One of Mrs. Buck’s specific mandates was “to extend help to the problems of the aged.” A large part of that trust set aside a 400-acre campus on Mt. Burdell for the Buck Institute.
The Buck Institute—with 190 employees, more than 40 percent of whom have PhDs—operates on an annual budget of a bit more than $31 million. Nearly 60 percent of its revenues come from federal grants, a bit less than 20 percent comes from private philanthropy and foundations, about the same percentage from the Buck Trust allocations, and about 5 percent derives from other revenue sources (including interest and technology). Leaders of the trust are quick to point to the need for additional public involvement, citing the “common knowledge” that Buck is self-supporting.
The Regenerative Medicine Center is the second structure in the Buck Institute’s overall plan for four research structures. It will add its space to the 185,000 square feet of existing research space and is expected to add a dozen new principal investigators and their support teams to the existing teams. The ground floor will be given over to meeting and conference rooms, while the basement will house a state-of-the-art stem cell and tissue repository (the only one of its kind on the West Coast). Much of the new work will, of course, be involved in stem cell research, which holds extraordinary promise of new insight into the effects of aging.
When awarding the grant to Buck, CIRM chairman Robert Klein made the following assessment: “The Buck Institute is making significant contributions to stem cell research. We recognize that young institutes, like Buck, don’t have the resources of our older, larger grantees. My colleagues and I have made personal commitments to help Buck succeed in establishing this new center and to help in fund-raising to ensure it succeeds.”
Aging gracefully
“We’re convinced that human embryonic stem cell research will be critical for understanding human aging and its related disorders, and we welcome public support for this undertaking,” said Dr. David Greenberg, who continues to be vice president of special research at Buck. “Our program will focus on identifying ways stem cells can be used for diagnosis and treatment of conditions that include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, as well as stroke, cancer and possibly arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and motor neuron diseases.”
Adds Kovach, “The biggest thing is that this sort of research promises to open new doors into areas we haven’t even begun to imagine. It may well provide a model system to study and understand the process of human aging and many age-related diseases. One key part of that has to do with the unique properties of human embryonic stem cells: undifferentiated human embryonic stems cells don’t age, but can differentiate into cells of different tissues. The specific aims are to use human embryonic stem cells—or their differentiated progeny—to study how cells self-renew and to examine processes involved in the biology of aging, including DNA repair, genome integrity and programmed cell death. The long-term goal of the program is to unravel the mysteries of aging and age-related human disease by better understanding the fundamental biological process of aging in appropriate human cell models.
“Speaking on behalf of my former teammates, professional football players are keenly aware of the aging process. As you know, a lot of attention has recently been brought to the effects of concussion and other injuries in the game. As well-trained as I was as a professional athlete, throughout my career, I experienced the decline in the regenerative and recuperative process that’s part of the aging process, and the challenge that we all have to face in retiring from the game. I’m more and more convinced that continuing regular exercise is at the core of eliminating—or at least putting off—many age-related debilities.
“My feeling is that aging currently remains vastly under-represented in research,” he continues. “But that’s changing as our population grows older. It’s vitally important we do all we can to extend the healthiest years of our lives. The Buck Institute is uniquely positioned and poised to take full advantage of opportunities to lead in this field. Our sole focus on aging, and our unique collaborative environment, give us a real edge when it comes to seeking grant dollars and collaborative agreements with industry.”
While the research that the Buck Institute’s new Regenerative Medicine Center opens up initially tilts toward the baby boomer generation, the results of these new studies ultimately bends toward each and every one of us who intends (and succeeds in) growing older. It’s a whole new ball game, folks, and the Buck Institute is artfully putting everything in place to ensure such beneficial research produces results that will improve all our lives.
