$34M expansion at Montreal Heart Institute Research Centre gets green light

Montreal, QC – The Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) has been given the go-ahead to expand its Research Centre at a cost of $33.9 million.

The project is being financed by the Quebec government ($21.8 million), the MHI Foundation ($10.1 million), the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal ($1.8 million), and the MHI itself is contributing $231,600.

Slated for completion in the fall of 2011, the project includes the physical expansion and reorganization of existing facilities, the addition of three new fundamental research laboratories and construction of space for future use in catheterization activities for research purposes.

Dr Jean-Claude Tardif, the MHI Research Centre’s director, said the expansion will have several significant effects. It will enable the institute to recruit more researchers of international stature, add new research laboratories in genetics, arrhythmias, vascular electrophysiology, regenerative medicine, mathematical modelling and metabolomics; expand many fundamental research laboratories in vascular pharmacology, endothelial function, proteomics, cardiac biochemistry, cardiovascular imaging, atherosclerosis, coronary procedures, molecular electrophysiology and cardiovascular rheology; expand and reorganize the animal housing facility (particularly for transgenic mice); and reorganize and expand clinical research infrastructures that are currently partly located in temporary structures.

“The Research Centre expansion will have major benefits in terms of the MHI’s capacity to achieve significant breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, while generating intellectual property as well as profitable economic spinoffs for Quebec,” added Robert Busilacchi, executive director of the MHI.

In addition, on June 18, the Montreal Heart Institute and its partners received $53 million for projects from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the government of Quebec.