The Rockefeller University Hospital

Over 100 Years of Bridging Science and Medicine

The Rockefeller University, founded in 1901 as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, was chartered to develop a scientific understanding of "the nature and causes of disease and the methods of its treatment, and to make knowledge relating to these various subjects available for the protection of the health of the public and the improved treatment of disease and injury." To achieve this mission, the trustees recognized the importance of building a research hospital, the first of its kind in the U.S., to complement the basic science laboratories.

On October 26, 1910, the new Rockefeller Institute Hospital admitted its first research participant, opening up a new era of biomedical investigation in which physicians were given the resources and encouragement to engage in fundamental studies in the hospital laboratories of the disease problems they dealt with on the hospital wards.

Today, the Hospital’s 100-plus year history can be judged a remarkable success. The interchange between laboratory and clinic has truly been a two-way street, with benefits in both directions. Studies of pneumonia patients in the Hospital, for example, led to the foundational concept of modern biology— that DNA carries hereditary information. And investigations that began in laboratories have yielded new therapies and diagnostic tests. With continued support, The Rockefeller University Hospital is poised to continue this extraordinary record of achievement in its next century.

A selection of the landmark scientific and medical contributions born out of the interactions between basic and clinical scientists at the Hospital are described in the Discoveries Advancing Medicine section of our centennial website.