Center for Discovery and Innovation Opens

What you need to know

Hackensack Meridian Health's Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) officially opened on May 29, 2019.

CDI is a 250,000-square-foot research facility located at the On3 campus, former home to Hoffmann-LaRoche, in Nutley and Clifton.

The center will focus on three specialty areas:

- Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
- Institute for Cancer and Infectious Disease.
- Institute for Multiple Myeloma.

Funding sources for CDI include the government (ie.: grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute), individual and corporate philanthropy, venture philanthropy and venture capital.

CDI's Key Researchers

• David S. Perlin, Ph.D., chief scientific officer and senior vice president, CDI. Dr. Perlin is the former director of the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s Public Health Research Institute and former director of the Rutgers Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, one of 13 NIH-designated national centers for pathogen research. The NIH has continuously funded him for 30 years, and he was most recently awarded a $33.3 million NIH grant to establish a Center of Excellence in Translational Research.

• David S. Siegel, M.D., Ph.D., founding director of the center’s Institute for Multiple Myeloma. Dr. Siegel is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the rare blood cancer. He served as the lead investigator of the pivotal phase IIb study involving 30 cancer centers in North America, including Hackensack University Medical Center’s John Theurer Cancer Center, that led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s fast-track approval of Kyprolis (carfilzomib) for recurrent multiple myeloma. He is also one of 11 investigators nationwide who brought Velcade (bortezomib) to multiple myeloma patients through his clinical trials showing this medication shows and halts the progression of the disease.