USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience

About the Center

In 2014, Dr. Gary K. Michelson and his wife, Alya, donated $50 million to the University of Southern California to create the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, bringing together exceptional scientists, researchers, and engineers from around the world to work collaboratively on solutions to today’s most pressing health issues.

Located at Michelson Hall (dedicated on November 1, 2017), this 190,000-square-foot interdisciplinary research facility is a model for other research universities, bringing the world closer to the medical breakthroughs that are redefining the 21st century.

One of the Center's notable programs is the USC Michelson Center Convergent Science Institute in Cancer, led by scientist and entrepreneur Peter Kuhn. This program integrates patient, model system, and high-content single-cell data to gain a better understanding of the physical and biological underpinnings of cancer dynamics. The lab has also pioneered the breakthrough liquid biopsy for cancer detection.

The Center's Bridge Institute is also working to address "impossible" health challenges by bringing together leaders in various fields such as chemistry, biology, medicine, mathematics, engineering, physics, nanosciences, computational sciences, as well as experts in animation and cinematography, to build the first atomic resolution structure of the human body. This development will speed up the creation and implementation of therapies and cures for a range of diseases and conditions.

Fostering collaboration in scientific discovery

The USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience is not an idea. It’s a mindset of bringing people together from disparate areas to tackle the world’s toughest problems. The Center aims to update the models of conducting bioscience, biotechnology, and bioengineering to transform the way we look at disease, and the speed at which solutions can reach people in need.

The USC Michelson Center Celebrates 5 Years

The USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience is celebrating the fifth anniversary of its opening in 2017. Dr. Gary K. Michelson recently visited the center to learn about the latest research being conducted with state-of-the-art equipment.

The USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience brings together a diverse network of scientists and engineers from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Keck School of Medicine of USC to solve some of the greatest intractable problems of the 21st century – from cancer, to neurological disease, to cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Michelson learning about the USC Michelson Center’s new cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) facility, featuring state-of-the-art instrumentation capable of imaging molecules

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