ISEB era dawning

After five years of planning, imagining, and building, the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building is ready for show time. A ribbon cutting ceremony is sched-uled for Oct. 21 to mark the completion of the $300 million research building.

Faculty and their research teams will begin moving into ISEB in a migration that will begin Nov. 1 and span about a year, administrators say. Featuring state-of-the-art labs and equipment, the five-story complex is expected to launch a new era of collaborative research and discovery on Case Quad. The university aimed for the opening to coincide with Case’s bicentennial and contractors delivered.

“The team has done a really good job planning,” said Dean Tufts, CWRU’s vice president for campus planning and facilities management. “And when you do a good job planning, your execution is better. And that’s what happened.”

Groundbreaking by Discovery Builders took place two years ago on the site of Yost Hall. Standing there now is a five-story, 190,000 square foot building of glass, steel and masonry designed by Minneapolis- based HGA architects. Inside, floors follow research themes—detailed in the spring 2026 issue of Case Alumnus—that will guide Case research into the future.

Threats to federal research funding tem- per the excitement. The National Institutes of Health, which funds most of CWRU’s research enterprise, has dramatically slowed its funding of university research.

“It’s not just us. It’s happening to everyone. But it’s worrisome,” said Michael Oakes, CWRU’s executive vice president for research and economic development.

Still, leaders of CWRU and the Case School of Engineering see much to cele-brate. The ribbon cutting offers a chance to thank people who made ISEB possible. That includes the Case Alumni Associa-tion, which contributed $5 million to the project, the largest single gift in its history.

“While we can’t control what happens in Washington, we can make sure we give our campus researchers the best possible facilities to work in,” said Frank Merat ’72, MS ’75, PhD ’78, president of the CAA. “With this project, we’ve done that. We are proud to be a part of it.”