Posted Sep 5, 2008, 5:09 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: San Francisco & Tucson
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Quote:
Friday, September 5, 2008
UCSF breaks ground on $42 million center
San Francisco Business Times - by Chris Rauber
The University of California, San Francisco plans to break ground Sept. 10 on a $42 million complex for its Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, a multi-disciplinary program now spread throughout the academic medical center.
The new 48,000-square-foot, five-story complex will be across the street from UCSF’s Mount Zion campus, at 1545 Divisadero St.
Officials expect to occupy the new space by late 2009 or early 2010, later than originally anticipated because it now includes five floors, instead of three; the two lower floors will be used by UCSF’s Division of Internal Medicine, part of the Department of Medicine, according to UCSF spokeswoman Kristen Bole.
In a preview of next week’s ground-breaking event, officials said the new center will include three floors dedicated to integrative health care, sometimes known as complementary or alternative medicine, including space for both research and clinical care.
The Osher Center program focuses on clinical care and research that “integrate” non-traditional approaches with more traditional Western science, including areas such as acupuncture, meditation, yoga, traditional Chinese medicine and therapeutic massage.
Margaret Chesney, associate director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Medicine, called the proposed new UCSF facility “a tremendous asset” to UCSF Medical Center, the university and the San Francisco community, as well as a nexus for research, clinical practice and teaching about integrative medicine. It’s also a sign of increasing interest in the discipline nationally, she said. Roughly a decade ago, UCSF, Harvard University, the University of Maryland and four other universities launched a consortium to advance studies in this arena, Chesney said. Today, the consortium has 41 members. The 11-year-old Osher Center at UCSF now has 55 researchers and staffers, but hopes to bolster that total significantly within three to five years, said Susan Folkman, its director and UCSF’s Osher Foundation distinguished professor of integrative medicine. The new structure will house 160 UCSF employees.
“Right now, we’re so cramped for space we’ve had to limit our growth,” Folkman said. But the new facility will solve that problem, allowing the Osher Center to hire more principal investigators and other researchers and clinicians.
Folkman prefers the term complementary because her center studies and uses alternative therapies or approaches such as acupuncture or meditation in combination with traditional Western approaches, not in isolation. “We’re in the heart of a great academic medical center, and we have great respect for Western medicine.”
Other major centers nationally that are similar to UCSF’s include Harvard University’s Osher Center and Maryland’s Center for Integrative Medicine, she said. The three centers collaborate in many ways, Folkman noted.
Over the last seven years, it has received a total of $21 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The structure’s developer is San Francisco’s SKS Investments, in a joint venture with San Francisco’s Plant Construction Co. LP. San Francisco’s KMD Architects is the architectural firm.
crauber@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4946
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Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/...ml?t=printable
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