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Graduate School Celebrates
a Place Where People Can Make Progress
New home provides expanded space for education, research, administration
Right in the heart of the world's largest medical center – that’s the location of the new home of The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS).
Embodying the spirit of collaboration are, from left, John Mendelsohn, M.D., president of the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; George Stancel, Ph.D., dean of the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston; and James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, at a celebration in the graduate school's new home. Photo by Ester Fant
A Feb. 17 open house celebrated the school’s new facilities at the George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building. GSBS was the first occupant of the 505,000-square-foot facility at 6767 Bertner, adjacent to the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and a few blocks from the UT Medical School at Houston.
During a brief ceremony, GSBS Dean George Stancel, Ph.D., focused on what the new facility would do for science and human life as a whole. He told how his family got the message 30 years ago that "there was nothing that could be done" when his grandmother was dying of heart disease. Yet today a variety of treatment options is available.
“Think about that,” Stancel, the John P. McGovern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Endowed Professor, told the students. “What made the difference between 30 years ago and today? Scientists like you. Construction of new facilities and buildings is about creating places where people can make progress.”
The GSBS, which draws its faculty from the schools of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, M. D. Anderson and the Texas A&M University Institute of Biosciences and Technology, has in its new home expanded classrooms and administrative space, veterinary medicine facilities, a library, an auditorium, and state-of-the-art research laboratory space.
The UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston has moved to the third floor of UT M. D. Anderson's new George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building. Photo by Hendrik van Dijk
James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the UT Health Science Center, expressed his enthusiasm for what the location means not only for the graduate school as a whole, but also for its students specifically.
“You’re in a hotbed – a very fertile area for discovery,” Willerson said. “If one can’t become an excellent biomedical scientist here, it can’t be done anywhere. You have a wonderful opportunity to have as good an education as anyone else.”
John Mendelsohn, M.D., president of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, agreed. “We couldn’t be happier about the building or the location,” he said. “We will be able to serve the faculty and students well. This continues with the wave of the future where we bring the best and the brightest together.”
Recalling the school’s earlier years, Raymond Meyn, Ph.D., professor of experimental radiation oncology at M. D. Anderson, said he has taught on the graduate school faculty since 1971 and remembers when the school started in the basement of the Hermann Parking Garage. “It’s come a long way,” he said.
By Erika E. Durham, Public Affairs