ACU is proud to be a founding partner of the new Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD) – Australia's first hospital-based medical discovery centre – which has officially opened in Melbourne.
Located in the St Vincent's Fitzroy Health and Innovation Precinct, the $206 million state-of-the-art biomedical engineering centre features cutting-edge laboratories, a human kinetics lab, 3D printing facilities, engineering workshops, a clinical simulation lab, and dedicated education facilities to train the next generation of clinical, nursing, allied health and biomedical research leaders.
ACMD's unique collaborative model, which places researchers, engineers, clinicians and industry partners under one roof, is designed to deliver groundbreaking technologies that improve patient outcomes, enhance health equity and transform Australia's health system.
The centre was officially opened on Wednesday 10 June, after more than two decades of planning, collaboration and investment in Australia's biomedical engineering future.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise Professor Abid Khan said ACU is proud to be at the forefront of people-centred solutions that advance human flourishing.
"The opening of ACMD progresses our long-term commitment to foundational and translational research, place-based innovation, and mission-driven partnerships that also strengthen our graduate research pipeline to meet the research and workforce demands of a rapidly growing and evolving care economy," Professor Khan said.
The ACMD model is built on the principle that the fastest path from medical discovery to a patient's bedside is to put the people who understand unmet clinical need in the same building as the people with the tools to solve it.
Its research space across 11 floors includes 31 laboratories with capacity for up to 900 researchers. Two floors are dedicated to the University of Melbourne Clinical School, training up to 300 new doctors per year.
"This isn't just a research facility, it's where the discoveries made in the lab will find their way to the bedside faster, and more reliably, than ever before,", ACMD acting chief executive Michael Krieg said.
"For patients across Victoria and beyond, that means better outcomes, shorter stays, and care that's built around what works."
The ACMD stands on the site of the former Aikenhead Wing of the St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne's residence for trainee nurses. It is named after Mary Aikenhead, the founder of the Sisters of Charity, the order of nuns who established St Vincent's.
It has been funded by a $90m grant from the Victorian and Commonwealth governments, $86 million from the ACMD partners, and generous philanthropic contributions.
The ACMD partnership involves St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Australian Catholic University, Bionics Institute, RMIT University, St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Swinburne University of Technology, and University of Melbourne.
