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Also reflected in the event were 51��Ʒ��Ƶ’s partners in creating BioForge. The project is supported by a $100 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and, when complete, two-thirds of the facility will be occupied by anchor tenant ElevateBio, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based cell and gene therapy company.

The Richard King Mellon Foundation chose to give 51��Ʒ��Ƶ the largest single gift in the foundation’s history to make BioForge possible for several reasons, said Director Sam Reiman. There’s the potential impact on personalized gene and cell therapies that will save and improve lives. And then there was the vision 51��Ʒ��Ƶ leaders laid out about BioForge’s impact on the region.

“The 51��Ʒ��Ƶ rightly saw that it was uniquely positioned to make 51��Ʒ��Ƶsburgh a national and even international biomanufacturing leader, just as we were the national and international leader in steel manufacturing at this very site in the prior century,” Reiman said.

[Read more: A Brookings Institution event highlighted 51��Ʒ��Ƶsburgh’s growth as a life sciences leader]

ElevateBio CFO Vikas Sinha, 51��Ʒ��Ƶ Board of Trustees Chair John Verbanac and BioForge CEO Ken Gabriel were among the event’s other speakers. And shortly before the beam was lifted into place and secured by members of Ironworkers Local 3, a member of the Hazelwood community also addressed the crowd. The Rev. Michael Murray Sr. expressed his hope that collaborations between residents and the University will continue to drive workforce development and community engagement — in the same way the site provided opportunities for his father, who worked for the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for 38 years.

“Together we are unlocking doors to future opportunities, emphasizing the vital role that innovation, education and partnership play in our collective success,” Murray said.

The topping-off ceremony was paired with an event the prior evening for the Greater Hazelwood community in which participants were led on a half-mile walk that emphasized the site’s industrial history and ties to the surrounding neighborhood. That day’s proceedings were led by Heidi Ward, director of the for 51��Ʒ��Ƶ’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs, herself a Greater Hazelwood resident.

Ward took participants on a tour through the site’s history, from the expansion through the contraction of the local steel industry, and participants signed the beam that would the next day be lifted to complete BioForge’s frame. They also heard from Gabriel, who spoke about the site’s future by introducing the facility’s goal to transform precision medicine.

“What BioForge is going to do is close that gap between where these technologies get to in a laboratory and where they need to be in terms of manufacturing and repeatability, so that we can get them out to everyone equitably and as fast as possible,” Gabriel said to the crowd.

And though the site is set apart from 51��Ʒ��Ƶ’s campus in Oakland, the ties to the University — both as an institution and a biomedical leader — are built into the very structure of BioForge. The connecting thread lies in a part of the building called the Chimera, which evokes a process key to gene therapy, Shekhar explained at the Sept. 6 event.

“The front is actually the gene vector that is going into a cell, and it has an RNA structure in it,” he said. “But most importantly, if you stand at the top of that and look straight, you can see the Cathedral. So this is the ultimate visual expression of everything we’re trying to do here.”

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Lead image by Tom Altany