On Oct. 15, 2014, the University of Iowa ushered in a new age of accelerated research in biomedicine with the formal opening of the $126 million John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building. The 256,000-square-foot building houses ‘high-risk, high-reward’ research in diabetes, deafness, and brain science.

The building was named for John Pappajohn, a venture capitalist and philanthropist from Des Moines and his wife, Mary, who committed $26.4 million in 2009 to help establish the Pappajohn Biomedical Institute and to contribute to the building’s construction. The other major donor was the state of Iowa.