Exclusive look inside new Adelaide medical research institute
FIRST ON 7: The new South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) is about to open its doors and 7News has been given an exclusive sneak peek.
The $200 million building is already turning the heads of those travelling on North Tce in Adelaide’s CBD.
The facade consists of more than 14,000 windows and panels – most with sunshades to optimise light and thermal efficiency.
SAHMRI project director Michelle Gheorghiu said that is a crucial part of the design.
“That was the entire idea - to include a lot of elements of glass and transparency, demystification of research,” she said.
Then there is the team working to seal all those windows.
“The normal question you get is ‘do you get paid danger money’ or ‘you must get a lot of money’,” Scott Noble from Specialist Height Access told 7News.
“Really, it’s not that dangerous, we tend to eliminate all that risk – (it is) probably more dangerous crossing the road.”
A total of 600 local and international medical minds will be housed at the institute, where they will work in nine state of the art laboratories spread over ten floors.
“We’ll be doing clinical trials, we’ll be doing what we call population health studies where we’ll be looking at large amounts of data and working out better ways of delivering health in South Australia,” SAHMRI executive director Professor Steve Wesselingh said.
There are already plans for a second SAHMRI building, right next door to the new one.
Once that gets the go-ahead, it will make the site one of the biggest health and research precincts in the southern hemisphere.
Among the gadgets in the new institute is a $20 million cyclotron - the first in the state - which creates radioisotopes used in cancer therapy and diagnosis.
The SAHMRI team will move into its new digs on December 20.
