The University of Chicago, a private institution, founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1892, recently celebrated 100 years of excellence in research and education. The campus is located on a 190-acre site near Lake Michigan, approximately 7 miles south of Chicago's business district. Henry Ives Cobb and Bertram Goodhue were commissioned to emulate in grey limestone the wonderful gothic architectural designs found in England's Oxford and Cambridge universities. The works of more modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Eero Saarinen are also prominent.

The medical school opened in the autumn of 1927 with three major clinical departments: medicine, surgery and obstetrics. The clinical faculty were unique for the time being entirely full-time, with no opportunity for private practice. Physician-investigators were recruited from the beginning and, until recent years when federal regulations became more restrictive, research laboratories were situated on every floor of the hospital adjacent to the physicians' offices. This arrangement was to enable physicians to work in their laboratories whenever spare time was available without the need to travel to a remote building.