The Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research in Sydney is to be housed under one roof in a new $135 million building.

 

WMI director, Professor Tony Cunningham said the time had come for all the Institute’s researchers to be in a single facility.

 

“We’ve grown so much in the past 15 years we now have more than 300 people outside the current WMI building, and 150 inside. WMI’s researchers and students are scattered all over Westmead Hospital in six different locations – including the pathology department and small buildings – many in dated or substandard accommodation,” he said.  

 

The New South WalesGovernment is contributing $30 million to the project, while the Commonwealth Government has contributed $37 million in grants over seven years. 

 

Professor Cunningham says the institute is still seeking about $35 million from the community, philanthropists and elsewhere to complete the building, which will be built in stages. 

 

The building will house core technology platform facilities (high-tech research equipment) used by Westmead Research Hub, and will be a resource for all the teaching hospitals of West Sydney that need this equipment.  It will create a physically-integrated research precinct of collaborating institutes and hospitals between the adults’ and the children’s hospitals.