Canadian Practices Illustrate Strategies and Challenges
When a small plane crash-landed just a few blocks away from the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (CSCHAH) in June 2002, it was less a wake-up call than a validation of the measures already in place to deal with disaster at the high-containment research facility.

As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) step up oversight of pathogens handled in biosafety level-3 and -4 laboratories, the transfer of dangerous organisms from one facility to another is becoming an increasingly stringent process under the Select Agent Rule (42 CFR Section 72.6).

Emory University
The Joseph B. Whitehead Biomedical Research Building at Emory University in Atlanta is one of only 24 facilities in the nation, and is the first building in the Southeastern United States, to achieve LEED certification.

$153-million Station Upgrade Supports a Burgeoning Research Community
In March 2003, some 50 researchers and support staff at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station marked an important landmark in station history by moving their belongings into the new 65,000-sf elevated station, becoming the first people to "winter over" in the new facility, which will eventually house 150 people upon completion in 2007.

While the new station at Amundsen-Scott is by far the largest elevated structure ever built on ice, it isn't the first. The plan draws on several decades of previous experience with elevated construction in Antarctica. Notable examples include the following:

Multi-disciplinary Research Impacts Modern Lab Design
Advancements in multi-disciplinary science, a proliferation of low-cost instrumentation, and increasing economic pressures are driving significant changes in the design of modern laboratory space. Breakthroughs in interdisciplinary fields and nanotechnology hold significant promise for modern science, but the facilities required to conduct these types of research are costly and without precedent. Rapid changes in market stability and government oversight are also affecting the development of research space.

Regeneration Technologies Inc.
Regeneration Technologies Inc. (RTI), a leader in science and safety, processes and sterilizes human tissue into allograft implants for surgeries. With three times the number of employees as it had when it was founded and still growing, RTI had outgrown its facility and needed more room. At the same time, it sought a facility that would bring RTI to the level of a world class tissue processor.

Michigan State University
The Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health (DCPAH) will serve as the State of Michigan's top diagnostic laboratory and one of the country's premier laboratories of its kind. Demand for the new facility grew in part from a recent outbreak of bovine tuberculosis in northern Michigan. The prime objective of the DCPAH will be to provide accurate diagnostic tests on a variety of animal tissues and support for practicing veterinarians, farmers and animal owners. The new facility will also provide clinical testing experience for undergraduate and graduate veterinarian students from Michigan State University.

Shands Children's Hospital
A new 24-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), part of Shands Children's Hospital at the University of Florida, a "hospital within a hospital," is now complete.

Changes Boost Productivity for Facilities Asset Management
The University of Miami Facilities Administration Department has accomplished vast improvements in worker productivity, work order completion, service response time, and customer satisfaction through continuous improvement programs designed to streamline business processes.