The Christie Paterson Research Centre beat five other prestigious projects to be named Building of the Year 2023.
Following a devastating fire which decimated the Christie Paterson cancer research facility in 2017, building work on the new Paterson Institute at Manchester’s Christie Hospital has been completed and the facility has been officially handed over to the project stakeholders including the Christie Paterson NHS Trust, The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK.
Together, a collaboration of architects, engineers and construction specialists have realised a fantastic, state of the art facility that will lead world-class transformational cancer research and bring together the largest concentration of scientists, doctors and nurses in Europe in that discipline.
At more than 25,000 sq metres and ten storeys high, the building is more than twice the size of the previous facility, allowing experts to deliver discovery research and translate their findings into innovative clinical trials, at scale. The design also includes an area for a publicly accessible exhibition space, to facilitate continual engagement with the local community.
The building is occupied by the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, as well as several teams from The University of Manchester’s Division of Cancer Sciences. It will be Manchester’s scientific headquarters for discovery science within the international Alliance for Early Cancer Detection (ACED), housing more than 300 scientists, 400 clinicians and operational staff, practising what is known as ‘team science’. They will deliver clinical trials covering the full extent of the patient pathway, from prevention and novel treatments to living with and beyond cancer.
A central component of the building is the new Cancer Research UK Biomarker Centre which is situated on the third and fourth floors of the building. The NBC’s focus will be on biomarkers to aid in early cancer detection and diagnosis, and enable personalised management of a patient’s cancer, including which therapy will bring the most benefit.