Posted Friday, May 2 --- 4:30pm

Madison: The UW formally broke ground on the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

The key word is institutes-plural, because it's made up of the public Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the private Morgridge Institute for Research.

It's hard to officially break ground on a project when most of the hole has already been excavated, but a who's who of UW Madison was on hand Friday.

Built in the middle of campus, it will be the center of research in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, engineering and information technology.

"The idea was to get smart people from different backgrounds together, and design a building to allow them to interact," says Marsha Mailick Seltzer, the WID interim director. "An interdisciplinary center brings together smart people from different fields, and then exciting things happen."

Putting the famous stem cell researcher Jamie Thompson in the building is a good start. "Jamie Thompson does great research," says John Morgridge, "but Jamie Thompson stimulates great research, not just on this campus, but all over the world."

The whole project will cost $150 million. The state, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and John and Tasha Morgridge will each pay $50 million.

On one side will be the public Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, and on the other side is the private Morgridge Institute for Research.

The private side will handle controversial research not paid for by the government, like embryonic stem cell research. "Private dollars can be assigned more rapidly to the changing world of science, enabling the faster advance of breakthrough discoveries we are fully expecting to occur in this joint effort," says Carl Gulbrandsen, director of WARF.

The Institutes for Discovery is being built on the site of what used to be one of the old Rennebohm Pharmacies, and the new buildling will include an old soda fountain.

It is scheduled to be opened in 2010.