Construction begins this week on a big new laboratory building at the V-A Medical Center in Iowa City. Steven Breese is administrative officer for research.Breese says it’ll be a three-story lab, with a fourth story that have meeting rooms for classes and conferences. Breese says the V-A hospital’s staff physicians are also researchers, and are faculty members in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Breese says their interests are “all over the board.” He says most of their work is molecular biology at the cellular level, working with various diseases and trying to find ways to help people. Breese says staffers may work taking care of pulmonary-disease patients at the VA hospital, but in their research may have projects that’ll have an impact on children’s health. Breese says the research is not limited to the medical conditions of the veterans living at the VA hospital in Iowa City. He says several folks are doing research in diabetes that’s been funded for decades by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and says their research spans the gamut, involving a range of ailments that affect the general population. Breese says the funding is separate, so money for the new lab doesn’t mean any less funding for the VA hospital. The three-Million-dollar lab building is expected to attract more top researchers to the VA center, and it’s the first addition to the hospital in 19 years. It should be completed in April 2005.
