Iowa State University broke ground in October of 2020 on the $75 million Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) in Ames. Located on the campus of the College of Veterinary Medicine, the 72,540-sf structure will provide leading-edge labs and testing suites to enable the prevention, detection, and mitigation of animal diseases including avian influenza, African Swine Fever, and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison opened the $57.1 million Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery Building in November of 2020. Designed by Potter Lawson, the 67,540-gsf facility provides the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences with leading-edge environments for research, teaching, and outreach. The two-story structure houses two technology-rich lecture halls, a shared research lab, an expansive atrium, demonstration areas, conference rooms, faculty offices, and a retail meat store.
The University of Massachusetts Medical School is planning to construct the $325 million New Education and Research Building in Worcester. Accommodating 77 principal investigators, the nine-story, 350,000-sf facility will include space for animal research as well as housing an FDA-compliant manufacturing center for clinical trial therapeutics. The project will enable UMass to increase its class sizes help meet the needs of the commonwealth and the nation for physicians, graduate nurses, life sciences researchers, and other health sciences professionals.
Facility Logix, EwingCole, and Biggins Lacy Shapiro have launched Rapid Reshore & Development (RR&D) to provide turnkey professional services to the life sciences and biopharmaceutical industries. Addressing many of the logistical challenges faced by companies developing drugs, vaccines, and medical devices, the alliance represents an evolution from transaction-driven service models to a holistic focus on client needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need for the research community to respond quickly to changing markets and to understand the value of laboratory spaces that are flexible, adaptable, and scalable. We’ve seen stadiums converted to makeshift hospitals, “drive-through” testing sites pop up in vacant parking lots, and testing laboratories continually ramp up production to expedite results. This quick-thinking behavior has been inspiring to witness but daunting to execute. Laboratories, by nature, are among the most complex building typologies, where the utmost importance is protecting both the health and safety of their occupants and the integrity of the research. The complexities of the resulting design can be challenging to undertake, but when faced with the extreme circumstances of a pandemic, it is possible to expedite the process with a combination of strategies.
The Bolivian National Service of Agricultural Health and Food Safety is planning to build a 201,076-sf research campus in Santa Cruz. Strengthening the country’s research and diagnosis capacity for veterinary, phytosanitary, and food safety challenges, the state-of-the-art complex will provide four laboratory buildings for animal health, plant health, food safety, and fruit fly research, as well as an administrative center.
Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies broke ground in August of 2020 on the $55 million Advanced Therapies Innovation Center in College Station, Texas. Representing an expansion of Fujifilm's cGMP manufacturing campus, the 60,000-sf facility will feature dedicated labs for process development and innovation. Research environments with BSL-2 capabilities will integrate advanced technologies for upstream, downstream, and analytical development.
Nagasaki University is planning to build a BSL-4 laboratory for SARS-CoV-2 research. The biocontainment facility will be located in an eight-story, 43,000-sf building providing specialized environments for the detection, study, and mitigation of infectious diseases. A dedicated area will accommodate novel coronavirus research. The Japanese government is expected to award $9.5 million in funding for fiscal year 2021 towards the construction of the project, which will also support training programs and the development of human resources.
Cleveland Clinic Florida opened the 107,000-sf Florida Research & Innovation Center in July of 2020 in Port St. Lucie. Accelerating the translation of medical discoveries into innovative therapeutics for clinical treatment, the facility will provide leading-edge laboratories for research programs in immuno-oncology and infectious diseases, such as Zika virus and SARS-CoV-2. The center includes BSL-3 biocontainment suites, administrative offices, meeting rooms, and an area for training programs.
Colorado State University is constructing the $34.6 million Johnson Family Equine Hospital on the South Campus in Fort Collins. Located in the Veterinary Health Complex on CSU’s South Campus, the 85,000-sf project will provide translational research and treatment facilities including sophisticated operating rooms, an equine sports medicine center, advanced imaging suites, a dedicated isolation unit, and rehabilitation and therapy areas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will begin construction in early 2021 on the 160,000-sf High Containment Continuity Laboratory in Atlanta. Designed by a joint venture of Flad Architects and Page, the BSL-4 facility will support the CDC's mission to rapidly detect and mitigate public health hazards. Accommodating approximately 80 investigators, the state-of-the-art laboratory will be one of three centers in the world designed and certified to facilitate diagnostic research on specific, select viruses.
While many campuses remain closed to undergraduate students, at least through the summer, researchers are beginning a phased return to their labs, with new safety protocols that include face masks and social distancing; guidelines for space usage and maintenance; and staggered work schedules. Institutions are requiring that researchers continue to do as much work as possible remotely, including writing, analyzing data, and conferring with colleagues. In order for research to fully resume, however, faculty need access to their labs, but they first must be trained in the new protocols and agree to adhere to them; failure to do so will results in the loss of lab access.
Genomic Partnership Wales is planning to construct a research facility in Cardiff in the United Kingdom to accelerate the development of pharmaceutical therapies. Created by a consortium of government, academic, and medical partners, the project involves the redevelopment of an existing two-story building to provide leading-edge genetics labs, seminar rooms, treatment suites, offices, freezer rooms, and support. The facility will include CL2 biocontainment research suites to ensure compliance with the UK's HBN 15 regulations for pathology services.
Erlab, a leading provider of air filtration solutions, is presenting a webinar on the mitigation of chemical risks in the laboratory at 10:00 AM BST on May 29, 2020. The one-and-a-half hour session will explore strategies for treating chemical risks at the source to enhance occupant safety and promote operational efficiency.
Visit GoToWebinar to register.
The webinar is also being offered in Spanish, Polish, French, and Maghreb French on separate days:
Allentown, an industry leader in research animal housing solutions, is offering a webinar on May 20, 2020. "Benefits of Biocontainment" will address the global challenges facing the animal housing industry and the ways in which biocontainment protocols can help address some of these issues when employed in the Allentown BCU-2 IVC and Cage system.
The webinar will be aired in two sessions at 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM EDT.
To register, visit Allentown, Inc.
