Phase 1 of laboratory construction for the Legacy Heritage Clinical Research Institute at Rambam has been completed.  This marks the Institute’s first building milestone, and brings it one step closer to its ultimate aim: understanding – and curing – disease. The first completed facilities in the project, four labs for the Diabetes Center of Excellence will start housing researchers in about a month’s time

The center’s director, Dr Derek LeRoith will arrive in October 2010, though he is already active in setting up research programs. A world-renowned expert on diabetes, Dr LeRoith has directed the diabetes centers in the Institutes of National Health (NIH) in Washington and at the Mt Sinai Medical Center in NY.

The longer-term goal is to establish a 20 story Clinical Research Discovery Tower. Meanwhile, researchers in areas of heart disease, cancer, infection and anti-immune diseases, neuro-degenerative illness, applied genetics, modern medical devices and medical imaging technologies will work on campus in labs in and near Rambam.

“With the completion of these labs, we will soon be up and running,” says Legacy Heritage Clinical Research Institute's Director Prof Michael Aviram, explaining that the institute will be structured as a group of centers of excellence focusing on several specific subjects. ”To succeed in this effort, we will build a critical mass of people who ‘speak the same language’ and can create a cross-fertilization of ideas. These researchers, who are generally also active physicians, will have combined proven experience in clinical work and research.” To this point, five researchers have come aboard, including among them, new Aliyah immigrants to Israel and returning Israelis - who would have remained abroad if not for this opportunity. Rambam expects to absorb increasing numbers of such talented clinician-scientists in the coming decade, and the Legacy Heritage Clinical Research Institute, has already proven itself as a major force in attracting the best and the brightest.

Like all other centers under the Legacy Heritage Clinical Research Institute umbrella, the Diabetes and Metabolism Center will be devoted to comprehending and treating disease.  Unique to such centers in Israel, most researchers here will be active clinicians, and will collaborate with their peers from the Rambam Health Care Campus to raise the clinical research profile, reach patient oriented discoveries and raise the standard of care. They will receive generous financial support for their lab equipment and research projects.

“The Legacy Heritage Clinical Research Institute will be the first hospital-based center of its kind,” says Project Management Director Prof Karl Skorecki. “It will be guided by an overriding mission: to conduct clinically-oriented investigations that will help cure diseases.”