Image courtesy of Versiti
Versiti Monumental Stair - Versiti Blood Research Insitute
A visualization of the new Versiti Blood Research Institute
The future of medicine may well be written in our blood. At Milwaukee’s Versiti Blood Research Institute (VBRI), teams of scientists and doctors devote their days to researching what keeps blood flowing and what happens when it runs into roadblocks. This means exploring transfusion medicine and immunobiology, also thrombosis, hemostasis, leukemia, sickle cell, vascular biology and stem cell research. Without healthy blood, oxygen will struggle to get from the lungs to the body's cells.
Established in 1981, the nonprofit Versiti is recognized as one of the nation’s best blood research institutes because it has turned science into tangible healing. Currently, with plans underway for a major new building, Versiti is preparing to expand its reach and its promise to keep finding answers that save lives.
Construction Project
Construction is well underway on the 79,000-square-foot expansion of the Versiti campus at 8727 W. Watertown Plank Road in Wauwatosa. Opening in late 2026, the new $79 million building wing will nearly double the institute’s research footprint.
Designed to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, the four-story structure will add roughly 10 new laboratory suites, space for 125 additional researchers, and a Campus Connector Bridge connecting the Versiti campus to the neighboring Medical College of Wisconsin cancer research facility. The space is collaborative and features a biorepository and a large first floor open room for conferences and lectures. A dramatic central stairwell anchors every level of the Versiti Blood Research Institute expansion.
The new complex will create 100 new jobs and accelerate interconnections between scientists and clinicians. More than just cement and glass, the project underscores Versiti’s commitment to hope and healing.
On the infrastructure side, the expansion includes advanced mechanical and lab systems. This means multiple custom air-handling units, radiant floor systems, and a climate-control/air-handling design to meet the demands of high-end laboratory operations. The plans emphasize flexibility and interaction: open lab blocks, collaborative zones, shell space that allows for future growth, and office/research team adjacencies that encourage ‘scientific neighborhoods.’
Research Scientist
Image courtesy of Versiti
Versiti Core Laps - Versiti Blood Research Insitute
A visualization of the new Versiti Blood Research Institute
Erin Yttre, senior coordinator of shared resources and lab operations at Versiti, took me on a tour. Along the way, I was able to talk with a scientist about his research projects. We found Dr. Sid Rao in a corridor of contiguous working labs where he spoke about his current research on leukemia in children.
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“Leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow,” he said. “It’s like the options to take many different paths from one place to another. We try to identify each path that leads from normal cells to cancer. If we can understand what goes wrong along the paths, we can develop better therapy.”
I asked Rao why he specialized in pediatric cancer care.
“I love kids,” he said. “I don’t much care about adults, don’t find them interesting. If a kid has a health problem, I will listen for hours. When you are a bone marrow transplant physician, especially for children, it is often the last stop if a child has leukemia. I do clinical bone marrow transplants for children at Children’s Hospital. At Versiti, I run a lab to research and understand how leukemia develops. My research on blood focuses on other options beside a bone marrow transplant.”
I asked, “What is the survival rate for kids with cancer?”
“There are a lot of different kinds of cancers,” he said. “In the 1940s, children diagnosed with cancer had little chance of surviving. But currently, 90% survive. But survival is not the same as living. Many of these kids going through cancer treatment might spend four to six weeks in the hospital for treatment, then go back to school, although their participation in certain areas is limited, like sports. But it is remarkable that we have gotten to this point. Keep in mind that cancer affects people in different ways, and our goal is specialized therapy to make them better. But we need to reduce the toxicity of the therapies we do, the side effects.”
I asked about the research program Dr Rao’s team is working on.
He said, “One of the great ideas of the last 10 years is precision oncology, meaning let’s look at the tumor and match it to a specific drug that will kill the cancer cells and not hurt anything else. But every cancer in every patient is different.”
Beside his regular responsibilities, Rao is the interim co-director of the Versiti Blood Research Institute. “Our job here at Versiti and the Medical College of Wisconsin is to generate knowledge,” he said, “and we do that through our 35 faculty members who study blood. With my co-director colleague, Dr. Hoffmeister, we help the faculty be effective in their research.”
New Building Will Connect Versiti with the Medical College
This gave me the opening to ask Rao about the new building under construction and what it will mean to the Versiti scientists.
“This new addition will allow the Versiti scientists to work together with the doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin,” he said. “We can solve problems together and come up with solutions. The building will help that connection by allowing us to bring together scientists, physicians, clinical researchers, and translational researchers by acting more of the nexus. The main thing is that the ability to work with researchers outside of the blood center could save lives.”
Rao also explained that the interconnection of science and medicine will allow Versiti and the Medical College to share equipment that otherwise they couldn’t use, afford or house on campus until now. He said the additional space allows for more researchers.
“We need to build critical masses in different domains of hematology research or blood-based diseases,” he said. “That gives us enough diversity of ideas and approaches to a problem to allow people to interact and build synergy with each campus.”
Led by Erin Yttre, I ended the tour outside at the construction site, the new building still in its womb stage, four stories of concrete, rebar and anticipation. It stood there in the chill air, not yet complete, but full of promise, waiting to become the kind of place where science and medicine might meet.
Looking out over the site, I could almost see it taking form: the Monumental Stair winding upward through the Light Well, the Second Floor Lounge where ideas will be exchanged, the hematology biorepository quietly storing the raw research materials. Soon, the Campus Connector Bridge will stretch across the grounds, linking Versiti’s new home to the Medical College of Wisconsin’s cancer research building: a physical connection that symbolizes the spirit of collaboration driving both institutions.
Inside, the core laboratories will house advanced instrumentation and technical expertise, supporting everything from genomic analysis to therapeutic development, resources that will serve the entire Milwaukee regional medical center community.
From where I stood, the skeleton of the connecting stairwell seemed to rise toward something larger than architecture. By December 2026, this place will no longer be a construction site but a living organism with researchers, students, and doctors, all bound by one purpose: to make a better life possible.
