Kellogg Eye Center expands with new tower

Ann Arbor, MI

-The Brehm Tower at the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center Complex, a $132 million, 230,000-square-foot, eight-story facility, opened March 1. It is adjacent to the existing Kellogg Eye Center research tower at the University of Michigan.

The new building includes seven eye-care clinics, high-tech surgical suites, and suites for refractive surgery and cosmetic surgery. The upper floors house the Brehm Center for Diabetes Research and laboratories for vision scientists. The proximity of the diabetes and eye centers is expected to help University of Michigan researchers in those fields collaborate on studies of eye-related complications of diabetes, notably diabetic retinopathy.

“This project has significantly expanded the eye center, allowing us to serve a rapidly growing and aging patient population and to expand the critical mass of scientists to advance research aimed at preserving vision,” said Paul R. Lichter, MD, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and director of the Kellogg Eye Center. “We often say that we help patients one at a time in our clinics and we help the world in our labs. That’s what we will do in this new building.”

The University of Michigan Health System formally will dedicate the building April 23. Festivities will include tours, Kellogg’s annual spring conference for ophthalmologists, and remarks by Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Paul A. Sieving, MD, PhD, director of the National Eye Institute.