The second of IBO’s biannual features on new labs highlights facilities from the academic, government and industrial sectors, spanning a variety of disciplines. The table on page 6 lists some of the largest planned academic lab buildings as well as facilities for drug development. Also featured in this article are labs for agriculture, disease and energy research.

Agriculture

For both applied agricultural and more basic scientific research, the Jordan Agricultural Research Center at California State University, Fresno, is expected to open in spring 2016. The three-story, 2,787 m2 (30,000 ft2) building is designed to promote collaboration among researchers from the Jordan College of Agriculture Sciences and Technology, College of Science and Mathematics, and the Lyles College of Engineering. The Center will contain wet and dry labs, and areas for interaction and study. Among other activities, space is provided for food sensory evaluation and tasting, environmental air and water quality testing, development of bioenergy systems, entomology, and research in genomics, microbiology and plant physiology.

Also for food and agriculture is the State of Utah’s planned Unified State Laboratory in West Valley City. Ground breaking occurred in June. Among other State Departments, the building will house the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF). The facility will be completed in 2016 and will contain the UDAF Dairy Testing, Feed and Fertilizer, Meat, and Pesticide Labs.

Syngenta’s new building in Stanton, Minnesota, will house more specific activities. Part of a $20 million expansion, the 3,530 m2 (38,000 ft2)structure will be used for R&D and testing labs for seed treatment, QA and training. Ground for the facility, which will be completed by the end of 2016, was broken in August.

Disease

Construction of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine will begin in January 2016 at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. The project will receive AUD 84 million ($60 million = AUD 1.41 = $1) from the federal and state governments, and construction of the 10,000 m2 (107,639 ft2) building is anticipated to take about a year and a half. It will contain physical containment labs (PC2 and PC3), specialist lab space and offices. Research in the facility will focus on infectious diseases, including dengue, malaria and multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

Focusing on research on both animal and human diseases, as well as pest management, is the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension Diagnostic and Research Center in Orono. Ground breaking is planned for the end of this year or early next year, with building completion expected by the end of 2016. Examples of diseases and pests to be studied include potato blight and salmonella. The facility will also be able to test ticks for transmittable diseases. The University has approved $9 million for the lab, and the Maine Technology Institute is contributing $500,000 for equipment.

Specializing in animal diseases, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Veterinary Diagnostic Center’s ground breaking occurred in April. The $44.7 million facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2017. The building will be the site of biomedical and food safety research, the development of testing methods, and teaching.

Energy

In July, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks broke ground on the Collaborative Energy Complex (CEC), within its College of Engineering & Mines. The $15.5 million CEC will be about 3,437 m2 (37,000 ft2) in size, with research and teaching labs, and space for faculty, students and industry. The building will serve as the headquarters of the Institute for Energy Studies and also house the petroleum engineering program.

Also facilitating studies of petroleum, Heriot-Watt University’s Lyell Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, experienced its ground breaking in January. The £20 million ($30 million = £0.66 = $1) facility is expected to be completed in early 2016. Staff from the University’s Schools of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure & Society and Life Sciences, as well as the British Geological Survey’s Scottish headquarters will be located in the Centre, as will the UK NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas, and the Shell Centre for Exploration in Geoscience. In addition, the facility will include a new climate change research aquarium, and lab and office space. Research at the Centre will focus on energy supply, environmental impact and climate change.

Focusing on other sources of energy, a 6.5 acre research campus for renewable energy technology is under construction in Ft. Myers, Florida. Officials from Florida Gulf Coast University broke ground in February for the Emergent Technologies Institute (ETI), consisting in part of a 2,285 m2 (24,600 ft2) building for labs and classrooms, accommodating both teaching and research labs, fabrication shops and facilities for pilot testing. The building is projected to be completed by the end of the year. The campus will also have outdoor space for research, development and testing of agricultural, solar and wind technologies, including a solar field for testing photovoltaic technology. The Institute is aimed at partnering academics with the private sector. ETI is the first facility of a 240 acre technology complex, the Innovation Hub, which is in the works.