A new era starts today with the opening of the UCSF Joan and Sanford I. Weill Neurosciences Building, creating a collaborative hub for one of the world's largest and most comprehensive neuroscience centers, on a campus that is home to Nobel-Prize winning research on the nervous system and brain.
The facility, which was designed to foster connections among scientists and clinicians in neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry, will serve as a global destination for researchers to develop innovative treatments for intractable brain diseases.
A patient area inside the UCSF Weill Neurosciences Building. Photo by Tom Seawell
The six-story building at 1651 4th St. will be the new hub for the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the UCSF headquarters for the Weill Neurohub, a research collaboration with UC Berkeley and the University of Washington that was launched in 2019 to support groundbreaking, cross-campus research.
Together with the nearby Sandler Neurosciences Center, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Hall, Genentech Hall, and soon-to-be-opened Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building, the facility will bring together some of the most innovative researchers in the field. The caliber and promise of that research is reflected in UCSF's standing as the top recipient of competitive grants in neurology and neurosurgery from the National Institutes of Health.
The building will serve as a cornerstone of neurological care for UCSF Medical Center - recognized as the nation's best hospital for neurology and neurosurgery by U.S. News & World Report for 2021-22 - with specially designed clinical areas to serve up to 450 patients per day.
"This is a remarkable time for neuroscience," said S. Andrew Josephson, MD, professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Neurology and a member of the steering committee for the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. "The UCSF Weill Neurosciences Building will stand as a beacon of hope, striving to push the frontier of what we know about the brain and expand the possibilities for effective treatments."
Designed as a Nexus for People and Research
"The UCSF Weill Neurosciences Building is a place for patients with the most complex and challenging cases to receive expert care, and a place for researchers to find answers to the most perplexing neurological and psychiatric conditions," said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood. "The building's design will enable us to bring researchers and clinicians together with our patients, to continue to advance that care into the future."
The new building was designed to connect and integrate historically separated disciplines. Among the priorities is folding psychiatry research in the new Oberndorf Research Labs into the neuroscience program to accelerate understanding of the brain and develop novel treatments for psychiatric disorders, such as autism, depression and schizophrenia, alongside advances in neurology.
