Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to share some exciting news about our plans to transform laboratory space on our Oakland research campus to create a new state-of-the-art pediatric blood disorder research center. The full-scale modernization project is on the first floor of our current research facility at 5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, formally known as CHORI.

When it is complete in 2025, it will have the capacity to house more than 60 researchers and up to a dozen teams working together to improve the lives of our patients and children around the world with debilitating blood conditions like sickle cell disease, thalassemia, leukemia, and bone marrow failure.

By renovating this lab space, we will create a modern home for “bench to bedside and back” research and therapeutics, positioning UCSF and BCH Oakland as a destination center for discovery, care, and collaboration. And with our current team of nationally recognized experts in pediatric hematology, oncology, and bone marrow transplant, we are primed to expand our translational research program and recruit and retain top physician-scientists.

The reimagined 11,600 square feet of lab space will include two suites of wet labs with a cutting-edge Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) facility, providing the vital infrastructure for stem cell research, as well as a suite of administrative offices. Construction will be contained to the interior southeast wing on the first floor, with no changes to the library, courtyard, senior center, or building exterior.

This effort underscores the shared commitment of UCSF and BCH Oakland to continue growing and enhancing our research and patient care programs to best serve the needs of our East Bay community and beyond for decades to come. It also builds upon our Oakland hospital’s rich legacy of being a changemaker and nexus for health equity, from the first sickle cell clinics set up in partnership with the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, to the innovative clinical trial currently underway using gene-editing technology that aims to cure the inherited disorder that disproportionately impacts the Black community.

We hope you will join our BCH town hall tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4th, at 12 p.m., to learn more about this project and other BCH modernization efforts on both sides of the Bay.

Thank you for all that you do on behalf of our patients and the many others who benefit from our revolutionary research and patient care programs.

Matt Cook
President, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals
Raphael Hirsch, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics, UCSF School of Medicine
Physician-in-Chief, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals