Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, remembers the mouse that humbled him. An ordinary mouse, in most respects, save a single missing gene. And Bhattacharya was going to figure out what that missing gene meant.
This was early in his days as a professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University in St. Louis. He was hot to trot, eager to impress. So he has this mouse with the missing gene, and immediately he can see the differences between it and a normally functioning mouse.
“All these differences that no one had ever reported before,” he said — differences pertaining to immune function and inflammation; differences that had real potential for application down-stream. “It’s like, ‘Yes, jackpot,’ right?”
But the further Bhattacharya and his colleagues got into their research, the less apparent the results became.
“It turned out there was another mutation in the mouse no one knew about,” he said. “And it turned out that all these things we were finding were because of the other gene, not the gene that we thought we were studying.”
And just like that, Bhattacharya’s daydream of the early-career scientist quickly and miraculously discovering insights previously unseen vanished.
“I think the longer you stay in this field the more humble you get, because you just accumulate all of these instances where you were sure that you were right, but then you do the experiment and it’s obvious you’re wrong,” he said. “I think that’s one of the things that makes it so much fun, because you can’t be sure, and it’s actually always – almost always – worth it to do that basic experiment.”
A Tucson native, Bhattacharya was born at the University of Arizona’s University Medical Center and raised on the east side. He moved to Indiana after his father took a job teaching math at Indiana University in Bloomington, where Bhattacharya later went to college.
Initially, he was going to be a chemistry major, but a quirk in the department’s requirements led him to biochemistry instead. He ended up in a doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley that allowed him to study aspects of both chemistry and biology. Immunology, the study of how our bodies use their own resources to defend against infection and disease, made an impression on him.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was back in Tucson as a professor in the Department of Immunobiology at the U of A College of Medicine – Tucson when he was drafted into helping the university come up with a response to a problem no one fully understood. Suddenly, he was meeting with liaisons from state government and the Office of General Counsel – people scientists don’t ordinarily bump into.
“When you recognize that you’re not just trying to jockey for credit on paper, but that the things you’re doing have real implications for how safe people will be on campus, how the university is going to manage this crisis, it enforces a different mindset,” he said.
That promise of real impact is something Bhattacharya is hoping to bring to fruition in his new role as inaugural executive director of the U of A Health Sciences Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies, or CAMI.
Part of his vision with CAMI is to bridge the gap between research and business such that scientists have clearer paths for getting their work into the world, where it can make an impact on patients’ lives.
“That was one of the promises that we made to our state government, and I intend to fulfill it,” he said.
An Oct. 30 groundbreaking ceremony marked the next step for CAMI, a biomedical research hub to be located on the Phoenix Bioscience Core. The more than 200,000-square-foot, seven-story building will house research laboratories, a clinical suite, administrative and meeting spaces, and an urban garden and café. The building is expected to be completed in 2027.
CAMI will anchor an innovation district that aims to establish the Phoenix Bioscience Core as a hub of cell and gene therapy research, startup activity and corporate engagement. Located at the corner of Seventh and Fillmore streets, CAMI will be adjacent to the Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building that houses the U of A College of Medicine – Phoenix.
“A strong life sciences innovation ecosystem is vital for Arizona’s future, both for the health care our population will need and for the economic development opportunities necessary for the state to thrive,” said University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella, PhD. “As the home to the southwest’s leading academic medical center, the University of Arizona is in the perfect position to lead the way, and CAMI is a vital part of this.”
CAMI builds on the idea that the most effective defense against health issues is the body’s natural immune system. CAMI’s goal is to develop new strategies for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancers, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions.
CAMI will accelerate the pursuit of therapies by bringing in new ideas and advancing research already underway at the University of Arizona Health Sciences to improve health outcomes for people across Arizona and around the world.
“The dream of CAMI started to become a reality with initial support from the Arizona Board of Regents’ New Economy Initiative. Additional funding from the state, county and city, as well as philanthropic donations, has made this important step forward possible. We are grateful to everyone who has supported CAMI’s mission and to McCarthy + SmithGroup for helping bring our vision to life,” said Michael D. Dake, MD, senior vice president for the U of A Health Sciences. “Through CAMI, we will be able to capitalize on the research and expertise at the University of Arizona Health Sciences and become a national leader in advanced immunotherapies research and treatments.”
The CAMI building is being designed and constructed by the design-build team of McCarthy + SmithGroup. Both McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and SmithGroup are nationally recognized, Phoenix-based firms with expertise in designing and building educational and research facilities.
During the construction process, CAMI research is being conducted in the Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building, which houses laboratory and administrative space for CAMI scientists.
