R. M. Bock Laboratories

1525 Linden Drive

Built in 1966

As one of the first of its kind, the UW Molecular Biology Graduate Program was formed in the late 1950s to provide a multi-disciplinary graduate training environment in the new area of molecular biology. Salvador Luria, a Nobel laureate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was invited to the University of Wisconsin–Madison to suggest what might be done to further research and training in the active new field of "Molecular Biology."

Luria suggested that molecular biology was likely to become the core of modern biology, and the university should create a “Center of Molecular Biology” charged with promoting research and training in the field. At the same time, plans to create a Center for Biophysics were being developed. One building to house both a Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Department of Biophysics was planned.

The building committee was co-chaired by Professors Paul Kaesberg and Robert Bock. Bock was considered a national leader of university research and graduate training. He also served as scientific advisor to four Wisconsin governors. The Molecular Biology/Biophysics building was completed in 1967 and became the home for the departments' graduate degree programs. After Bock’s death in 1991, the building was renamed in his honor. Extensive remodeling and upgrading of the building were completed in the summer of 1998. Today, the research facility houses the Institute for Molecular Virology, the Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation, the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, the Biophysics Graduate Program and NIH Training Grant in Molecular Biophysics, the Molecular Biosciences Training Grant program, resources for microscopy, and a virus image library.