Expand Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine and Fralin Biomedical Research Institute

About the Project

The Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute generate highly trained physicians and the next generation of biomedical scientists to meet the healthcare and research needs of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Located in Roanoke, in an urban campus setting shared with Virginia Tech’s strategic partner in healthcare programs, Carilion Clinic, these two programs currently share a 151,000 gross-square-foot facility. The Expand Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine and Fralin Biomedical Research Institute project – composed of new construction and renovation of existing space – will provide critical facilities and infrastructure to support growth in these two programs.

The new approximately 100,000 gross-square-foot Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine facility will be located in direct proximity to the existing combined school of medicine and Fralin Biomedical Research Institute building. The free-standing academic building will include team rooms, patient clinical exam rooms and support spaces, medical instruction learning studios and lecture halls, dry instruction labs, a testing center, academic support spaces, and administration spaces. The existing building will receive an approximately 51,000 gross-square-foot renovation of the vacated medical school space to create additional research laboratory and computation/data analytics capacity for the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. These will include dry and wet research spaces as well as office and administrative spaces.

The Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine has established a unique niche among medical schools with an extraordinary demand by students seeking a medical education providing the skillsets of physicians trained as scientists. Once expanded facilities are complete, the school will be well-positioned to strategically grow enrollment. The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute has generated unprecedented growth, including doubling its enterprise and lab facilities in Roanoke in a single decade. The research institute currently employs over 400 faculty, staff and students including 37 faculty-led research teams focusing their innovations on preventing and providing new diagnostics and therapeutics for the conditions of most significant health impact including brain disorders, heart disease and cancer. This renovation will allow the institute to advance its research portfolio, compete for additional research grants and contracts, and increase the externally sponsored research in the commonwealth.