Ryerson is set to get a new health science research facility.
The university and St. Michael’s Hospital announced plans to open iBest, the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science Technology, a more than 6,000-square-metre collaborative research centre to be located in the hospital’s Keenan Research Centre.
Wednesday’s event was held at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute with speakers President Sheldon Levy and Dr.Ori Rotstein, director of the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science at the St. Michael’s Hospital.
“I am so delighted to be here, so proud to be associated with such a great organization as St. Mikes,” said President Levy. “I think we all have this ambition when you bring great people together there will be things that will be discovered and ideas that will be commercialized that none ever imagined.”
The 20-year partnership will provide approximately 15 Ryerson faculty members and 40 students, whose active research involves health care, with the opportunity to work side-by-side with the St. Michael’s scientists and clinician-scientists working in Keenan Research Centre laboratories.
It will include about a 600-square-metre “incubator” that will specialize in the development and commercialization of innovative biomechanical products to care for and treat patients.
iBest has its foundation in Ryerson’s long-standing connections with St. Michael’s, including internships and other educational opportunities for about 215 nursing, psychology, clinical dietetics, interior design and midwifery students each year.
This opportunity will provide, “an exciting breakthrough in media technology and bring innovative treatments to the patience faster,” Rotstein states in a news release.
Construction for iBest is expected to begin next spring and completed by spring 2015.
Shazah graduated from the Ryerson School of Journalism in 2014.