Wallace Tumor Institute and New Cancer Center

A complete interior and partial exterior renovation of the Wallace Tumor Institute, the hub of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, achieves the three priorities established by the Center’s director: It provides a front door for the Institute, infuses the building with natural light, and is designed to foster collaboration between scientists.

According to the architect, they converted “an introverted building into an extroverted building,” in part by replacing interior corridors with a six-story skylight and atrium, and renovating the two-story grand lobby.

The building contains eight stories, six above grade and two below, including imaging, vivarium, clinical studies, cancer cell biology, cold room, hematology oncology, ENT cancer surgery research, administration, and patient education. Offices are clustered around common areas, and research spaces employ an open lab concept.

The centerpiece of the facility is the $20 million, 30-ton cyclotron and adjacent Advanced Imaging Center. The cyclotron is the largest particle accelerator in an academic medical center in the United States. It takes particles, spins them around, and sends them through a beam of light to smash against a target. That creates an isotope, which is administered to a patient to diagnose cancer, Alzheimer’s, or heart disease.

The $15.8 million imaging center contains two $2.2 million PET CT scanners, which differ from a standard CT scan in that they allow doctors to look at how cells and tissues function at the molecular level. The image is obtained in about half the time, so patients are exposed to half the radiation of a standard CT scan.