The University of Iowa will hold a dedication ceremony October 15 for the $126 million John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building, which will house “high-risk, high-reward” research in diabetes, deafness and brain science as well as complex diseases affecting the heart and lungs. 

The building will be the new home of the Iowa Institute of for Biomedical Imaging (IIBI), a major research unit of the College of Engineering.

John Pappajohn, a venture capitalist and philanthropist from Des Moines and his wife, Mary, committed $26.4 million in 2009 for construction of the 256,000-square-foot building, a hub of biomedical research on the UI campus.

The 256,000-square-foot building will host six centers and programs, including the IIBI — all aimed at improving understanding of the fundamentals of biology and disease and extending discoveries into real-life applications that improve human health.  IIBI will occupy about a fifth of the entire building.