Specialized Labs Enhance Research Capabilities
Purdue University is garnering a significant amount of attention for creating a research facility that is as groundbreaking as the emerging field of nanotechnology, which it is designed to accommodate.

Purdue University
The Birck Nanotechnology Center (BNC) at Purdue University is a $58-million facility that offers researchers an opportunity to work with specialized equipment in an environment that incites intellectual ingenuity and fosters interaction. The 183,000-sf, two-story BNC, completed in September 2005, includes specialized labs and a nanotechnology incubator. Office space is available for 160 graduate students and 40 faculty and full-time researchers.

Carnegie Mellon University
Renovation and expansion of the 100-year-old Doherty Hall at Carnegie Mellon University provides students with more hands-on, project-oriented laboratory programs and with more innovative teaching methods. Changes to the lab program produced more focus on research with both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary programs. Instrument techniques and modern analytical instrumentation are also integrated into the learning experience.

Undergraduate Science Labs Promote Hands-On, Collaborative Learning
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is preparing undergraduate students for an ever-changing world of science by providing them with a research-based learning environment that encourages teamwork and nurtures tomorrow's pioneers.

Planning for Post-fire Clean-up and Automated Animal Watering for the BRI
Harvard's subterranean Biology Research Infrastructure (BRI) facility has made a remarkable recovery after suffering a damaging fire on February 5, 2005. The fire, of unknown origin, and subsequent clean-up so tainted the building that the entire interior was gutted back to the structural concrete outer walls. Almost 85 percent complete at the time of the disaster, the 40,000-cage underground vivarium is now on track to meet a substantial completion date in May 2006.

Committee Reviews Ways to Transform Capital Project Process
Early last year, the Regents of the University of California (UC) assembled a panel of six construction-industry experts to render an informed professional opinion on how the University could reduce the cost of new construction. The final report, a now-public document entitled, "Transforming Capital Asset Utilization Delivery--Opportunities for Reducing Project Costs and Achieving More Program for the University's Capital Dollar," says that to save construction dollars on a large scale the University needs to change the way it does business concerning the planning and execution of building projects.

New Facility expected to Enhance Operational Logistics, Space Use, and Contamination Control
The new 120,000-sf vivarium in the George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building (BSRB) is scheduled to open in the fall of 2006. Occupancy of floors three through 16 began in early 2005 and the 485,740-sf facility is already a busy hub for researchers, physicians, and students.

University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
The recently completed, George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building provides biomedical researchers an open interactive environment with access to the latest core support facilities to further research in the areas of immunology, molecular biology, and human cancer genetics.