Industry News

Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) in Annapolis, Md., is engaged in a $13-million expansion and renovation of its two-story Cancer Center. Project expenses involve $4-million in construction costs and $9-million for new technology, including NOVALIS, which utilizes imaging and targeting software to direct an energy beam delivery system for the destruction of tumors. The first floor of the center will open in January 2003. AAMC is also developing a new radiosurgery technology program.   

Mykrolis, formerly Millipore Microelectronics Inc., is relocating its headquarters to 180,000 sf in Billerica. The semiconductor equipment company will finish moving its 250 Massachusetts employees into the building by March 2003. Mykrolis, now an independent entity, is relocating from the Bedford office of its former parent company, Millipore Corp. Mykrolis' new facility was previously a local campus of Brampton, Ontario-based Nortel Networks Ltd.

American BioFuels is relocating its production operations to Bakersfield, Calif., as part of a joint venture with Hondo Chemical of Bakersfield. American BioFuels, based in San Diego, will move from a building in Adelanto which processed 2.5 million gallons of biofuel annually to Hondo's Bakersfield site, which can process 50 million gallons annually. Initial production is aimed to reach 15 million gallons per year as market demand increases. Production at the Hondo facilities is slated to begin in February 2003.

The $17.9-million Regional Transportation Center is under construction in San Diego. Located on a 1.4-acre site in City Heights, the project will feature a 60,000-sf facility that will promote awareness of alternative fuel vehicles. The building is being funded via a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and by the San Diego Environmental Foundation, Ford Motor Co., Pearson Ford, California Air Resources Board, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the city of San Diego.

Northwestern University recently opened the 40,000-sf Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly in Evanston, Ill. The facility encompasses wet chemistry and complementing laboratories, shared microscope and laser facilities, offices, a seminar room, and other support spaces. The facility is the first federally and privately funded nanotechnology center in the country and will provide a scientific basis for technological advances in the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases and in monitoring the environmental factors that can cause illness.