Research and Development

The Eisai Research Institute of Boston, a biopharmaceutical research firm, is planning a $50-million expansion and consolidation project in Andover, Mass. Eisai will break ground in late summer of 2004 on a 150,000-sf facility replacing a 66,825-sf office sited adjacent to the company’s existing 40,000-sf drug discovery facility. A new 5,000-sf addition is also included in the project, which involves the consolidation and relocation of Eisai’s Wilmington lab space to the new facility when it opens in 2006.

The Science Park-Research Division of the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is expanding its Smithville, Texas, campus with the addition of a 10,000-sf conference center. The project includes a 300-seat auditorium and a new physical plant. Construction will begin in early 2004. The division’s campus currently houses five buildings on 720 acres.

Ktech is moving into an 83,400-sf facility in Sandia, N.M., to expand its commercial activity in the semiconductor, sensor, material coatings, and robotics industries. Ktech is a Sandia National Laboratories contractor, supplying operations, engineering, and maintenance services to the Department of Energy’s Pulsed Power Research Center. Ktech’s operations were previously located in six offices in the Albuquerque area.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is engaged in a five-year, $40 million renovation of its laboratory space at the John Wesley Powell Building in Reston. The sixth phase of an eight phase project, the renovation will create state-of-the-art labs enabling the USGS to provide reliable biological science information. Designed by Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann, the general contractor for the project is Grunley Construction, with Bovis Lend Lease as construction manager.

Indianapolis, Ind.-based Polaris Laboratories has opened a new fluid analysis testing facility in Houston. The 5,000-sf laboratory, which can complete most routine testing in 24 hours, has the capacity to process 3,000 samples per day. Polaris provides fluid analysis testing to the transportation, power generation, and gas compression industries.

NASA/Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., has awarded the University of California, Santa Cruz a $330 million, ten-year contract to manage the development of a University Affiliated Research Center. As the first such development established by the space agency, the center will focus on interdisciplinary research in information technology, astrobiology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. NASA is also creating a 200-acre research and education park at Moffett Federal Airfield.

The Boeing Co. will open its new 100,000-sf virtual war simulation center in St. Louis in 2004. The $20 million facility will enable customers to experience how different programs work together, a process that could create more integrated systems business for Boeing. The center will employ 75 workers when it opens, with plans to grow to 150 employees within three or four years.

The University of Texas is planning the Texas Center for High-Intensity Laser Science. The facility will accommodate scientists studying and manipulating the interactions of matter with a high-intensity laser. The center, slated for completion in three years, will be built in an underground bay on the university’s Austin campus.

Treasure Valley Renewable Resources is planning to construct a new biorefinery plant near Ontario, Ore. The $77-million sustainable facility will use corn, wheat, barley, and milo as feed stock to create food-grade fiber, starch, and protein concentrate for human food and aquaculture industries. Carbon dioxide will also be captured for the production of ethanol and commercial sales. Additionally, the wet-spent grain byproduct generated by the facility will be used as livestock feed.

Agricultural biotech company PlantGenix is relocating from Philadelphia to expanded offices in the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern, Pa. The new facility will enable PlantGenix to pursue its plant-based production of a variety of chemical and biological compounds.

The Düsseldorf, Germany-based Profil Institute for Metabolic Research is relocating its U.S. headquarters to 8,000-sf in Chula Vista, Calif. The facility is slated to open in October 2003 and will house administrative, research, and quality assurance operations. The Profil Institute is a clinical research organization that contracts with biotech and pharmaceutical firms to test experimental drugs for diabetes in metabolic disorders.

Oregon Health & Science University has received $2.5-million of federal research funding to establish a National Center for Research on Bioterrorism Agents in Portland, Ore. Studying issues important to combating bioterrorism, the center will accommodate over 20 OHSU faculty members focused on disease research. A comprehensive database of pathogens will be developed to create more effective methods of vaccination against a bioterrorist attack.

The University of Maryland-Baltimore’s planned Biomedical Research Park in West Baltimore has received $4 million to assist startup companies from the state’s Sunny Day Fund. The funding will enable young companies to make needed office and lab improvements.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has opened a new regional headquarters that includes the agency's district office and a modern, multi-purpose laboratory. The new regional headquarters, which completes the FDA’s consolidation of 18 outdated laboratories around the country, is located in Irvine, Calif., and will serve the Southwest Pacific Region. Situated on a 10-acre plot purchased from the University of California, the facility will replace a 50-year-old lab in Los Angeles and the district office currently located in Irvine.

Venter Science Foundation Joint Technology Center will open its 60,000-sf facility in Rockville in June 2003. The high-throughput DNA sequencing center will enable scientists from Craig Venter’s Center for the Advancement of Genomics (TCAG) and Duke University to work together to refine genomics research and lower the cost of DNA sequencing technologies. TCAG is a non-profit genomics research and policy center.