Medical School to dedicate Discovery Walk Saturday

Discovery Walk stretches from the Clark Center to the Lokey Stem Cell Research Building.

The “Discovery Walk” — a promenade that stretches across the entire length of the Medical School campus — commemorates major advances in medical science made by scientists at Stanford and beyond over the last 150 years. The outdoor art installation tells these stories of medical research, in words and images, all etched on black granite panels that line a series of benches along the walkway.

An official dedication ceremony of the monument is planned for Saturday, May 5, at 1:30 p.m. at the Albert Yu and Mary Bechmann Plaza outside the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge. The ceremony will feature Medical School Dean PHILIP PIZZO; SUSAN SCHWARTZENBERG, the visual artist who designed the exhibit; TOM LEADER, the project’s landscape architect; and alumnus ROSS BRIGHT. Schwartzenberg also will lead a tour of the installation after the ceremony.

The new installation consists of 22 benches with 347 panels, made of a clear black granite imported from a mountaintop quarry in Mongolia. It is landscaped with pistache trees, flowers and a medicinal herb garden. The first five benches have panels covering the Medical School’s history, from its origins in 1858 to the present; the remainder delve into such subjects as the sequencing of the genome, the discovery of stem cells, the development of the linear accelerator to treat cancer and research on cardiovascular disease and transplantation

Read the full story on the Medical School’s news website.