One Marshfield Clinic’s campus there’s a new building. Inside of it are state-of-the-art laboratories where doctors are researching genetics, emerging infectious diseases and informatics, which is the study of electronic health records.

Researchers in each department actually work rather close together and share a common goal – giving doctors proactive approaches to helping people stay healthy.

“It’s truly a building that’s going to be dedicated towards personalized medicine,” said Dr. Karl Ulrich, President & CEO of the Marshfield Clinic.

One of the great things about having the research facility right next to the hospital is that any advances in medical research can be moved to the patient’s bedside much more quickly, since research staff and clinical staff are always working together so closely.

"If you look at how long it takes for discovery in the laboratory to become standard clinical practice, right now that takes an average of 17 years. That's too long,” said Dr. Justin Starren, director of the Biomedical Informatics Center at the Marshfield Clinic. “The idea is by using computing technologies and informatics we can accelerate that process."

All the new labs in the Laird Research Center should help doctors move along in their discoveries, and in turn, improve the lives of patients in Central Wisconsin and beyond.

"To a large degree this is a dedication to future generations," Laird said.

If you’d like to get an up-close look at the research being done at the new facility or meet the people doing it, you can take a tour Friday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. or Saturday from 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.