Jaharis Center to facilitate nutrition, biomed sciences studies

In a ceremony attended by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the Jaharis Family Center for Biomedical and Nutrition Sciences opened last Friday on Tufts' Boston campus.

The new 180,000 square-foot facility will house the Nutrition School, which is moving from its three Medford campus houses and four rented spaces in Boston. The center will also provide space for the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the School of Medicine.

The Jaharis Center will increase Tufts' research space by almost 50 percent and also create a unique opportunity for nutritional experts to work with biomedical researchers in studying diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

The facility represents Tufts' approach to collaboration in research and teaching, according to University President Larry Bacow. "With more than $25 million in annual research currently funded by the public and private sectors, this new center will stimulate collaboration among nearly 500 nutritionists, basic scientists and clinical researchers," he said in a Tufts' press release.

Over 300 donors contributed to the construction of the $65 million facility, which is located on Harrison Ave. in Chinatown. The lead donor, Tufts trustee Michael Jaharis, contributed $10 million and raised another $10 million.

Jaharis, whose son, Steven, graduated from the Tufts Medical School in 1987, is the chairman of the board of overseers for the Medical School and the chairman emeritus of Miami-based KOS Pharmaceuticals

The center's planned projects include a $6.6 million, five-year National Institute of Health study to investigate micronutrient deficiency in the elderly and how it relates to strokes, cognitive functioning, and Alzheimer's disease. The study will be conducted in conjunction with Tufts-New England Medical Center.

The first floor of the nine-story building will be occupied by the Tufts Nutrition School, and will include classrooms, administrative offices, an auditorium, and indoor and outdoor cafe areas. The upper floors will serve as laboratories. The fourth and fifth floors were left unfinished to reserve space for additional research.

The Jaharis Family Center will yield more than disease-curing research: it will also help the region economically, Bacow told the Boston Herald. "Biomedical research is a cornerstone of the region's economy. It's an engine of economic growth for Boston and Massachusetts," he said.

The Nutrition School's new Boston location, however, may make it more difficult to maintain its bond with the Medford campus, the school's executive associate dean, David Hastings, noted in a press release. Although most of the Nutrition School will be in Boston, the Alan Shawn Feinstein International Famine Center will remain in two houses on the Medford campus.

But Hastings stressed that University unity is about much more than physical proximity. "[The] University must cease being identified by its campus geography, and more so by its aggregate community," Hastings said.

Since the Nutrition School has field staff in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and various East African countries, Hastings has experience in maintaining cohesion among people in widely-dispersed locations.

The new center's size and the proximity of its occupants represent a new era for Tufts Nutrition, according to Hastings. "We will experience a different kind of community as so many of the disparate parts of the Nutrition School will come together in one building," he said. "The difference for us is that so many of us will actually see and work with each other face-to-face on a daily basis."