Research and Development

UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography will begin construction in summer of 2010 on the $26.5 million Marine Ecosystem Sensing, Observation and Modeling (MESOM) Laboratory. Located in La Jolla, Calif., the planned three-story, 18,000-asf facility will house laboratories, offices, and conference rooms for multidisciplinary research on physical, biological, and chemical sensors for ocean ecology research. Completion is expected in 2012. A minimum of LEED Silver sustainable design certification will be sought for the facility.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory opened the $3.3 million Renewable Fuels Heating Plant in November of 2008. Located at the South Table Mountain Campus in Golden, Colo., the project will heat laboratory buildings by smoke-free burning of woody biomass. The Renewable Fuels Heating Plant will offset the emission of 4.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide and the use of 50,000 million BTUs of natural gas annually.

The University of Florida is planning to construct the $2 million Aquatic Pathobiology Laboratory in Gainesville. Funded by $1.267 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the 6,990-sf research facility will include the Aquatic Animal Health Facility, small and large animal necropsy, molecular diagnostics, aquatic animal holding, and water preparation rooms.

DuPont opened the DuPont Knowledge Center in Hyderabad, India, in November of 2008. The $30 million facility houses laboratories for biotechnology, materials research, engineering design, and applications development. The project broke ground in summer of 2007 and can accommodate up to 600 scientists and staff. Housing basic research, bioinformatics, product development, and patent services, the Knowledge Center will support DuPont’s industrial and plant biotechnology operations in the Asia Pacific region.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Air Vehicles Directorate celebrated the opening of the $3 million Facility for Innovative Research in Structures Technology (FIRST) in November of 2008. Located in Building 65 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, FIRST will support engineering and research on the structure and thermal envelopes of air vehicles. Laboratory amenities include compressed air, water, argon gas, nitrogen gas, and liquid nitrogen. Construction began on the project in 2007.

Tulane University opened its $27.5 million Regional Biosafety Laboratory at the National Primate Research Center on December 5, 2008. Located in Covington, La., the 38,000-sf BSL-3 facility supports research on infectious diseases and airborne contaminants. The laboratory will house approximately 180 monkeys when research operations begin in summer of 2009.

Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend (IUSM-SB) and Notre Dame University broke ground on the $20 million Harper Hall in South Bend in November of 2008. The 55,000-sf project will house medical education facilities, offices, and 28 cancer research laboratories for IUSM-SB and the University of Notre Dame. The building will connect on three levels to the existing Raclin-Carmichael Hall, which houses IUSM-SB and Notre Dame’s Keck Center for Transgene Research.

The National Cave and Karst Research Institute broke ground on a $5.2 million research laboratory in Carlsbad, Calif., in November of 2008. The 17,315-sf facility will support geological research and will include a life-sized model of the Lechuguilla Cave crystal chandelier. Completion is expected by January of 2010.

Wacker Polymers America broke ground on its 67,000-sf headquarters in Allentown, Pa., in November of 2008. Supporting the creation of environmentally friendly dispersions, binders, polymer additives, and dispersible powders, the facility will house administrative functions and laboratories for R&D, applications testing, and product development. Occupancy is expected in late summer of 2009. Wacker Polymers America is a subsidiary of Germany-based Wacker Chemie AG.

The Marine Biological Laboratory will begin construction in March of 2009 on a $25 million renovation of the three-story Loeb Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Designed by Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, the project will create research space for regenerative biology and medicine. The general contractor is Shawmut Construction. Completion is slated for June of 2010.

The University of Oxford opened its £20 million Biomedical Sciences Building in the United Kingdom in November of 2008. Construction began on the animal research laboratory in 2003. Full research operations will commence in mid-2009. The facility primarily houses mice; 98 percent of the animals in the building are rodents with a small amount of fish, frogs, ferrets, and nonhuman primates.

The University of Missouri-Columbia dedicated its $18 million Regional Biocontainment Laboratory on November 15, 2008. Located adjacent to the Veterinary Medicine Complex, the 23,000-gsf BSL-3 facility contains 9,768 sf of research space for the study of zoonotic pathogens and emerging infectious diseases. The project was designed by PGAV (Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets) with Merrick & Company as MEP/FP/biocontainment consultant and George Butler Associates as commissioning consultant.

The International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) opened its 36,000-sf Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory in New York City in November of 2008. Located in Brooklyn, the translational research project will anchor a planned 500,000-sf bioscience industry complex in the redeveloped Brooklyn Army Terminal. IAVI’s Design Lab will support AIDS vaccine research and is affiliated with the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center. The $17 million lab is designed to foster industry and academic collaboration and will accommodate 40 researchers.

The University of Maryland is engaged in a $545,000 upgrade of three heating and cooling systems on its College Park campus. The project will reduce energy consumption by 55 percent and will replace aging chillers in three facilities: the Lab for Physical Sciences, the Animal Science Wing, and the Physics/Superconductivity Center.

Merck Serono is engaged in a €300 million expansion of its biologics manufacturing campus in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. The expanded Merck Serono Biotech Center will support the production of therapeutics for colorectal and head and neck cancers as well as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The project will feature two dedicated production suites, each with a 120,000-liter bioreactor capacity. A logistics center and a wastewater treatment station will also be constructed. Production is expected to begin in 2012.