Charday Penn / E+ / via Getty Images
1373227607
The pro in plant genetics
The region’s top medical schools are the engines behind not only groundbreaking research and treatments but also transformational development in the heart of the city.
Dr. David H. Perlmutter, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs at Washington University School of Medicine, says “incredible expansion” is underway. This summer, an 11-story, 600,000-square-foot neuroscience research building is slated to open in the Cortex Innovation Community. It will house researchers in neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, and anesthesiology, including those studying neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases. By bringing an array of researchers together under one roof in Cortex, the school hopes to enhance opportunities for translational research.
“We want to encourage our scientists to transform their discoveries into innovations that can move quickly to improve medical care and quality of life,” Perlmutter says. At the building’s topping-out ceremony he noted, “In the darkest days of COVID, this project served as a vital reminder of progress and perseverance, of a better and brighter future ahead.”
At the same time, plans call for a 16-story inpatient hospital tower at nearby Barnes-Jewish Hospital that’s slated to open in 2025 and 2026, as well as a 9-story outpatient cancer care facility of the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, expected to open in summer 2024. The medical school is also expanding and building high-tech laboratory space for infectious diseases research and for the development of innovative cell-based cancer therapies.
Just a couple miles east, the state-of-the-art SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital is also expanding, after opening its doors in September 2020. A new $25 million ambulatory addition will include “larger operating rooms and procedural areas to allow more students to observe real-life cases and more room for multidisciplinary teams to discuss cases, new research, and clinical trial opportunities,” says Brandon L. Rahn, SSM Health adult academic director for strategy and business.
As one of the nine National Institutes of Health–funded vaccine research institutions, the medical school is also doing important infectious disease research. “SLU’s Center for Vaccine Development has conducted pivotal research on the H1N1 influenza vaccine, Zika virus, and has been a key leader in COVID-19 vaccine trials,” notes Dr. Christine Jacobs, dean and vice president for medical affairs at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
AGRICULTURE & BIOTECH
Given its prime location in the heart of the United States, at the confluence of three great rivers and sprawling farmland, St. Louis has long been an agricultural hub. “Today, half of the nation’s crops and livestock are produced within a 500-mile radius of St. Louis, including approximately 80 percent of the nation’s corn and soybean acreage,” reports the St. Louis AgriBusiness Club. “It’s not surprising that a number of major businesses and organizations that either depend upon or support agribusiness have chosen to locate here.”
In fact, more than 9 percent of metro-area jobs are in agri-food tech and related fields. The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and adjacent BRDG Park are hubs for biotech research, spurring insights into such areas as drought-tolerant, disease-resistant crops and drone-driven farming. Nearby, such agtech giants as Bayer (formerly Monsanto), Bunge, and Novus International call St. Louis home, while a host of newcomers are carving out their own niches. For instance, Cambridge-based Wyld Networks, which is developing satellite IoT technology for agriculture and supply chain sectors, recently announced that it would base its North American operations here. And at the Missouri Botanical Garden—with its new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center and soon-to-be-refurbished Bayer Event Center—
scientists are making important biological discoveries both near and far.
GEOSPATIAL
As anticipation builds for the new western headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, slated to open in North St. Louis in 2025, an entire local community centered on geospatial intelligence has emerged, and the St. Louis region is a leader in the field.
Downtown tech innovation hub T-REX opened the Geospatial Innovation Center, including a geotech-focused incubator, a state-of-the-art classroom and creative space, and an extended reality and simulation lab, and it has partnered with the NGA to create Moonshot Labs—a lab where the agency, industry, and academia can collaborate.
Likewise, the new Taylor Geospatial Institute brings together eight of the region’s top research institutions—Saint Louis University, Washington University, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Harris-Stowe State University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Missouri–Columbia, and University of Missouri–St. Louis—to advance geospatial science. “By establishing this world-class research institute,” said Andy Taylor, executive chairman of Enterprise Holdings, “we’re sending a powerful signal to the world that St. Louis is where the best and brightest minds in location science come together to make positive impacts on our society and global climate, and to help industries create smarter products and services.”
Richard Drew / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Square IPO
Square Co-founder Jim McKelvey and CEO Jack Dorsey
TECHNOLOGY
St. Louis’ strong IT and financial-services sectors, along with its robust startup scene, have fostered an ideal setting for financial-technology firms. Already, the metro area is a leader in financial services: It’s the headquarters for such firms as Edward Jones and Stifel, and MasterCard’s global operations are based in O’Fallon, Missouri. Then there’s Block (formerly Square), founded by St. Louis natives Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey. The fintech company made a splash when it announced it would be expanding from its original office in Cortex to the former Post-Dispatch building downtown.
Other fintech startups have found a home in St. Louis, too. FinLocker, a personal financial fitness tool, raised $20 million in Series A funding in 2020, led by St. Louis–based venture capital firm Cultivation Capital. And in August 2022, Scale AI Inc.—which provides technology to help such companies and organizations as General Motors, Samsung, federal agencies, and research institutions use artificial intelligence—announced it would open an office downtown. “Scale’s new office in downtown St. Louis strengthens our city’s position as a leader in the technology industry,” Mayor Tishaura Jones said.
St. Louis also recently received a $25 million Build Back Better grant to support the creation of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center in North St. Louis, a hub-and-spoke model of research and innovation in the tech triangle among Ranken Technical College, Cortex, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. “When the St. Louis metro works together and speaks with one voice,” said Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall, “we succeed.”
