WA research comes together

Some of WA's top research institutes will come together in a new precinct in the Perth suburb of Nedlands in a $360 million masterplan for the state's medical research sector.

The precinct will house more than 1500 medical and scientific researchers from the Lions Eye Institute, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, the WA Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR), the University of WA and the state pathology service, PathWest.

The precinct will be housed at the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre in Nedlands and will be built alongside the existing Lions Eye facility and the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. New women's and children's hospitals will also be built in the precinct.

WA Minister for Health Jim McGinty said construction of the first of the new buildings - a $100 million centre for the WAIMR and a $71 million laboratory facility for PathWest - will start in 2009.

A $40 million neurosciences research facility, part-funded by a donation of $20 million by WA businessman Ralph Sarich, inventor of the orbital engine, will also be built between 2009 and 2011. As soon as that is complete, work will begin on a new $150 million building for the Telethon Institute.

"This new research precinct is set to rival the best in the world," McGinty said. "I believe it will serve as a beacon attracting the best scientists and researchers from across Australia and beyond to Perth."

He thanked Sarich for his donation and urged other Western Australians, who have done extremely well financially in recent years, to contribute. Sarich's donation is thought to be the largest philanthropic bequest ever made in WA.

The QEII precinct will complement new research facilities being built alongside the Fiona Stanley Hospital in Murdoch, including a second WAIMR facility.