With golden scissors in each of their hands, University of Iowa President Sally Mason joined donor John Pappajohn and several other officials for a ribbon cutting that marked the culmination of the new Biomedical Discovery Building.

The new John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building was dedicated Wednesday in a ceremony presided over by the Pappajohns. 

Speakers, including Mason, Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, and Pappajohn Biomedical Institute Director Michael Welsh, detailed the building’s importance and thanked the Pappajohns for their generous financial contributions.

“I hope we will be bold, very bold,” Welsh said. “So bold that sometimes we sometimes fail, because if don’t fail, we aren’t aiming high enough.”

The newest building on the UI’s Health Science Campus cost nearly $126 million, and stands 10 stories high.

The building includes a floor dedicated to diabetes research, high-end MRI equipment, a variety of interdisciplinary labs, and a café serving Java House coffee.

John Pappajohn went on to explain his vision of hard work and how the building will serve to promote health-care research throughout Iowa, the nation, and beyond.

“This innovative one-of-a-kind building will develop solutions that will change the world,” he said.

 — by Michael Kadrie