The Pears Building, designed by Hopkins Architects, is a world class research centre bringing together leading scientists, academic clinicians and clinical trials specialists to develop revolutionary treatments and therapies for patients. Two years after the building opened, we caught up with Professor Hans Stauss, Director of the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation, to see how it is performing and hear more about the work of the Institute.

What were your original ambitions for the Pears Building?

We wanted a research building that was different from most others in London. We wanted it to be accessible to the public and to patients, to feel light and welcoming and to promote interaction. This building houses research, a patient accommodation and has been designed for all the stakeholders of translational research. The public, patients and the scientists who work in the research labs are all co-located here.

It’s a big challenge to design and deliver a transparent, interactive research building. Most research buildings are about maximising security and maximising the isolation of different research units within the building. We wanted to do things differently and have a building that emphasises access and transparency. Getting everyone to see the benefits of open plan layouts and exposed ceilings to create a sense of space and openness, required a little persuasion at first, but it’s a fantastic building and people love working here.

It’s been great fun to work with Hopkins Architects over the last few years. Discussing our ideas together has been fantastic, and the way the vision has been translated into the final design has been brilliant.

Key to your vision has been collaboration and interaction between scientists. How does the design of the building support that?

We agreed that we needed a variety of communal spaces including open-plan labs, with different research groups co-located in the same open-plan office space. The alternative would have been to break up the office space and co-locate it with individual labs but we wanted to avoid segregation and facilitate interaction between different groups.

Hopkins have delivered a building that still gives a sense of group identity but which genuinely promotes interaction - and people love it! You can see groups interacting with each other in the communal offices, the break-out spaces, the pods. The soft seating on level 3 is really lovely and is used by everyone in the building for small group meetings or to socialise – it really does work in bringing people together.

I love lots of things about the building. The pods suspended in the atrium look fantastic. I love the combination of materials - the carpets with the exposed concrete, the wooden structure, the glass – it has all been very skilfully put together by Hopkins. They have created a very uplifting environment.

Was putting research on show part of your strategy for the building?

Traditionally scientists can feel uncomfortable working under the public gaze, and the public can sometimes feel uncomfortable about what scientists are up to. We wanted to break down those barriers.

Here, transparency is like an invitation. The public can literally see what’s happening in the research labs and the scientists are comfortable that the public can just walk past and look in. I think it’s a brilliant education for both!

How important is a great building in attracting the best in their field?

There is no question that the building itself is a draw for top class scientists. The building has been designed for around 200 scientists. Our plan was always to move here with existing UCL researchers, occupying approximately two thirds of the building, and then fill the remaining third with new recruits. Right now we have around 180 scientists including BSc, MSc and PhD students. We are pretty much on target with our recruitment programme and almost at capacity.

There are two things that are very attractive for leaders in their field. One is the world class science that we are undertaking here, but equally important is that we have a state-of-the-art building. It is uplifting when you walk in, fun and a joy to work in. About eighteen months ago we recruited for a professorial post. We had applicants from all over the world – America, Europe, Asia, Australia - without the building or the level of science that we undertake here, there is no way we would have got that kind of response.

What kind of work has been going on in the building since it opened?

Fantastic work in understanding how the immune system reacts to the Covid infection. The next stage of that will be to produce a new vaccine that will give protection not only against the covid virus but also against common corona viruses. It will be a game changer in vaccine design.

The other thing we have done in this building is develop our work around auto-immunity, a very common example of which is Type 1 Diabetes. We are looking at ways to genetically reprogramme the immune cells so that they can switch off the Type 1 Diabetes and the attack on insulin producing cells but leave the rest of the immune system intact. We have set up a new development company, Quell Therapeutics, and the idea has attracted an £86 million investment from AstraZeneca and a £2 billion development plan to develop therapies to deal with Type 1 Diabetes and auto-immune inflammation disease of the gut.

What are your ambitions for the future?

We have already had a number of successes. The level of science and research publications that have been produced here in the last two years is outstanding, alongside the new covid vaccine and world-leading stem-cell and gene therapies that we offer patients with immunity conditions. That work has all been noticed by the international science community,

I’m really happy with the way the building has been delivered and the type of science that we are able to do here. We wanted to be an international centre of excellence in the study of the immune system and in the development of new treatments for patients with immune conditions. We are very much on track to do just that and to be a leading centre worldwide.