Biomedical

Columbia University is planning to construct the Jerome L. Greene Science Center on 17 acres in the West Harlem area of New York City. Housing multidisciplinary neuroscience research involving computer science, genetics, and psychology, the facility is slated for completion in 2015. The project is part of the first phase of Columbia’s expansion onto the Manhattanville site located two-thirds of a mile from Columbia’s main campus. New buildings for the Columbia Business School and the School of the Arts will be included in phase one.

California State University, Fresno was awarded a five-year, $45 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities in early 2008 to construct a new biomedical research facility. CSU Fresno is one of 19 universities in the nation to receive the award. Aiming to integrate teaching and research, the project will support the Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) program.

The Department of Defense broke ground on the $92 million Joint Center of Excellence for Battlefield Health and Trauma Research at Fort Sam Houston in Texas in January of 2008. Accommodating combat casualty care and trauma research missions, the 150,000-sf project is part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) initiative. Slated for completion in September of 2009, the research center will be collocated with the Institute of Surgical Research, which will receive a 5,000-sf renovation.

Stanford Medical Center, comprised of Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, has named architects for the estimated $2 billion seismic upgrade and expansion project in Palo Alto, Calif. Lead architect Rafael Viñoly of New York will work with Burkhart, Liu Inc. of Marina del Rey on the Stanford Hospital project comprising 1.4 million-sf in new construction and including a 600-bed inpatient hospital.

Children’s Memorial Hospital will break ground in spring of 2008 on a new pediatric hospital in Chicago. The $850 million facility will be funded in part by a $100 million donation from Ann Lurie, for whom the hospital will be named. The project will feature state-of-the-art technology and equipment to support pediatric health research and treatment. Completion is slated for 2012.

The Indian government has approved Rs.1 billion ($25.4 million) for the construction of a BSL-4 laboratory in Andhra Pradesh. The animal research facility will be sited on five acres three kilometers from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, the organization that will operate the laboratory for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine will begin construction in spring of 2008 on a $90 million medical school campus in Grand Rapids. The 180,000-sf facility will be called the Secchia Center and will partner with institutions including Spectrum Health, the Van Andel Institute, and Saint Mary's Health Care. Comprised of seven medical school floors and a five-story parking garage, the center will feature an atrium connecting floors one through four and a smaller atrium on floors five and six.

After years of research, development and laboratory testing, SANYO has introduced the MCO-80IC Reach-In CO2 Incubator. It is both easy to use and designed specifically for critical applications in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical investigation. Safe for even the most demanding of cell culture protocols, the SANYO MCO-80IC offers significant economic benefits by avoiding costly interruptions for decontamination, improving cell culture growth and expression under stable, repeatable conditions, and minimizing the potential for loss due to contamination.

Emory Healthcare and Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) formed a partnership, the Alliance for Predictive and Personalized Health, in December of 2007. Initiated by Dr. Fred Sanfilippo, the chairman of Emory Healthcare and the former head of OSUMC, the initiative aims to enhance health care at the patient level with genetic breakthroughs and information technology improvements.

Saint Louis University dedicated the $82 million Edward A. Doisy Research Center in St. Louis, Mo., on December 7, 2007. Designed by Cannon Design, the 206,000-sf, 10-story glass and steel tower is the centerpiece of the University’s multi-million dollar program to accelerate its steady growth in funded basic medical science research and clinical translational research. The state-of-the-art facility features many open labs to foster exploration, research, and communication of information and ideas among the next generation of medical leaders.

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) is planning to construct a biomedical research facility in London adjacent to the British Library. Created by a £500 million partnership with the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, The Wellcome Trust, and University College London, the center will accommodate 1,500 staff and is slated for completion in 2013.

Texas Tech Health Sciences Center opened the $48 million Medical Education Building II in El Paso in December of 2007. Part of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, the 125,000-sf facility is the second in a planned three-building campus. The four story facility houses classrooms, teaching labs, computer simulation labs with manikins, a digital library, and administrative offices.

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, a developer of adult stem cell technologies, began constructing an animal research facility at its headquarters in Petach-Tikvah, Israel in late 2007. Housing laboratories for preclinical therapeutics research, the vivarium and cleanroom facility will be built to meet National Institutes of Health and National Research Council guidelines.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital dedicated the $134 million Chili's Care Center in Memphis in November of 2007. The seven-story, 340,000-sf facility houses an MRI and the only cyclotron dedicated to childhood cancer research. The facility features expanded programs for diagnostic imaging and bone marrow transplants; research laboratories; the department of radiation oncology; and the brain tumor program. The fourth floor of the building is unoccupied to accommodate future growth. Complete occupancy is slated for spring of 2008.

Dalhousie University, in partnership with Capital Health and the IWK Health Centre, is planning to construct the $42 million Life Sciences Research Institute (LSRI) in Halifax. Designed by Halifax-based WHW Architects, the 115,000-sf, five-story LSRI will house post-incubator research projects and laboratory space for tenants, two floors of labs for the Brain Repair Centre, and a CL2/APL2 Integrated Animal Care Facility (IACF) for non-severe biological agent research on the fifth floor.