These are exciting times for Stony Brook Medicine. On Nov. 13, we broke ground on construction of the Medical and Research Translation (MART) building, the centerpiece of the most ambitious expansion project in our history.
This $194 million project will help create a truly collaborative environment that brings clinicians and researchers together to facilitate innovation, research and discovery. In so doing, we will catalyze major advances in understanding the origins of disease and in better treatments for our patients.
The MART is the first facility in a $423 million expansion at Stony Brook Medicine. Scheduled for completion in 2016, the 245,000-square-foot, eight-story building will be located adjacent to the Hospital and Health Sciences Center on the Medicine campus.
The MART will be a home for understanding the basis for human disease, where scientific discovery will be translated into clinical research, and where promising patient results can be turned into FDA-approved healthcare diagnostic and treatment options. As part of its core mission, the MART will be devoted to cancer research and care, including the new home for the Stony Brook University Cancer Center.
The MART will build on the strengths of Stony Brook University to create a world class bench-to-bedside incubator for the best ideas in medicine. It will allow us to attract and house top researchers with a particular focus on cancer, and on imaging, and on “big data” informatics. And it will house our clinical cancer center, designed to bring the very best ideas and people in cancer medicine directly to our patients. Our growth in cancer care will provide Suffolk County with the essential resources to address the tertiary care needs of patients, so that our community hospital and physician partners can focus on the region’s needs for outstanding primary and secondary care.
The MART will also accelerate the biomedical research essential to put the devastating effects of cancer behind us. Through the synergy of our Hospital, School of Medicine, the University and our Research and Development Park, the MART will help Stony Brook attract the very best minds in cancer, in imaging and in informatics.
The MART will significantly advance another one of Stony Brook Medicine’s three critical missions – educating the biomedical scientists and healthcare providers of the future. In addition to classrooms and curriculum, the MART cancer research laboratories will provide work-study opportunities for Stony Brook University undergraduate students, and advanced research opportunities for graduate students and physician-scientist learners. It will expand the opportunities for medical residents and fellows to practice medicine in a specialized care setting. And since most of our physician graduates remain to practice on Long Island or in New York, the MART will provide another way for Stony Brook Medicine to deliver the best doctors and caregivers in the State.
Being bilingual – that is, being a physician AND a biomedical researcher – I have seen firsthand how research can create more effective diagnostic and targeted therapeutic approaches to cancer care. That’s why I am especially excited about our plans, which will create a premier center of advanced medical research and treatment for the people of Long Island and beyond.
Kenneth Kaushansky, MD, MACP
Dean, School of Medicine
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