We plan to renovate the 2nd floor of C Wing, Sterling Hall of Medicine, to provide a modern, consolidated facility that will form the focal point for the activities of the Department of Cell Biology at the Yale Medical School. The Department, founded as the Section of Cell Biology in 1973, has been housed in laboratories constructed from space renovated at that time. Aging infrastructure coupled with new programmatic goals have rendered the existing space inadequate and have led to the formulation of the following three objectives for the proposed renovation. First, the renovation will create two large open-design laboratories to be shared among the five investigators on the floor, facilitating communication and allowing for future flexibility and individual research programs change size and focus. Second, the planned renovation will provide common facilities for floor residents and Department members, including a room for Drosophila manipulation, shared equipment rooms, and a suite housing a digital imaging microscopy (DIM) core. The need for adequate digital imaging facilities reflects the common theme that unites our investigations, the elucidation of structure-function correlates at the cellular, tissue and organismal levels. Third, a centrally located space will be devoted to a common conference/meeting room complex that we believe is essential to unify our research and teaching. These three facets of the renovation are essential to maintain Cell Biology at Yale as a driving force in all aspects of biomedical research at our School.
