Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., dean of the UNMC College of Pharmacy, said attendees who tour the new UNMC Center for Drug Discovery and Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education following its Tuesday, Aug. 23, grand opening, are in for a treat.
Pharmacy building grand opening Aug. 23
What: Grand opening of the UNMC Center for Drug Discovery and Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education.
When: Tuesday, Aug. 23, 3 p.m.
Where: Ruth and Bill Scott Student Plaza, on the north side of the new building.
Why: To celebrate, embark upon self-guided tours and enjoy fellowship and snacks.
Who: You! The campus is invited to join donors, dignitaries, UNMC leaders and the College of Pharmacy family.
But then, so are the students, educators, scientists and staff who will work in it every day.
“This building,” Dr. Fletcher said, “is why you hire architects. . . . it is beautiful, flooded with natural light, energy efficient, and they’ve used every nook and cranny.”
He would go on to describe the new facility as “a perfect example of form following function.”
Dr. Fletcher noted that the new building consists of three floors, each a football field long. And as the building flows, it embodies the College of Pharmacy’s mission.
“The third floor,” the UNMC Center for Drug Discovery, “is where we create knowledge,” Dr. Fletcher said.
It consists of three suites of labs designed for drug discovery: medicinal chemistry and the design and synthesis of new compounds; drug delivery, particularly with nanotechnology; and clinical and translational research.
The state-of-the-art labs were designed to help UNMC scientists get more work done, faster.
“We previously had the capability of doing more work,” Dr. Fletcher said. “We just didn’t have the space to do more work.”
“The College of Pharmacy has had a tremendous amount of success in developing new drugs and new processes of developing drugs,” said UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D. “This new home has within its laboratories some of the finest new technology to continue to grow that.”
Dr. Gold said, “It also has the space available for us to recruit new faculty and new leaders in the area of drug discovery, which is an important part of our future. Hopefully some of our students will be excited and think about filling those roles.”
Speaking of those students, the first and second floors are the Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education. Here are new auditoriums, designed not just for lectures, but active learning. And classrooms, with every technological advance.
The second floor is where knowledge is disseminated.
The first floor has a model pharmacy, a compounding lab, a sterile product preparation lab, and the patient care learning labs where the College of Pharmacy provides the tools future pharmacists will need.
This is where knowledge is put into practice. This is where students will learn to make an impact on their patients and communities.