The second of IBO’s biannual new laboratory roundup indicates that new academic and consumer product labs, as well as labs in the Middle East, are being built or expanded. Many of these labs involve cross-disciplinary functions. The table on page 3 highlights plans for new academic, clean energy and contract research organization labs.

In the US, new academic labs, many of them biomedical, have been announced. Construction began in April on a nine-story, $134.8 million tower, part of the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research towers that will house a combined 1,700 researchers to study ailments such as cancer, heart disease and brain disorders at the University of Wisconsin. The first tower, which opened in 2008, houses the headquarters of the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Imaging sciences also are featured in the second tower, with medical physics occupying the lower level and radiology occupying the first floor. The base of the second tower will house a vivarium. Research will focus on cardiovascular disease, molecular medicine, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and eye research and will open by the fall of 2013.

In June, the University of Massachusetts at Boston began constructing its $152 million Integrated Sciences Complex. The six-story facility will have 220,000 square feet of wet and dry labs, research space and teaching space. It will also include biology teaching labs, an infant cognition lab and two new research centers, the Developmental Sciences Research Center and the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy. The facility is part of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s five-year investment plan, which also involves construction of a $144 million, 300,000-sq.-ft. science building at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and of the Emerging Technology Center at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

In September, construction began on the J. Craig Venter Institute’s (JCVI) 45,000-sq.-ft. nonprofit genomics research center, located on the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. Research will concentrate on human genomic sequencing and analysis, synthetic genomics and environmental genomics. JCVI, alone and with UCSD and other partners, will carry out specific programs including applying synthetic biology advances to microbes to solve environmental and human health issues. The lab is scheduled for completion in 2013. Construction has also begun on the UCSD campus’s Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility, to be opened in August 2013. The $105 million, 196,000-sq.-ft. building will have wet labs, open lab space, and space for lab and administrative support. It will function in conjunction with the existing 145,000-sq.-ft. UCSD School of Medicine Leichtag Family Foundation for Biomedical Research Building.

Later this fall, New Jersey’s Rutgers University will open the Center for Integrative Proteomics Research. The $47 million, 75,000-sq.-ft. building will accommodate the university’s protein data bank, which processes and distributes 3-D structure data of large molecules of proteins and nucleic acids, and the BioMaPS (Biology, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences) Institute for Quantitative Biology and will also have facilities for NMR, MS and cryo-electron microscopy.

Three hundred researchers began moving in this month to Pennsylvania State University’s 297,000-sq.-ft. Millennium Science Complex. The Complex, which houses the Institutes of the Life Sciences and Materials Research Institute, will officially open in November. The Complex has animal facilities, infectious disease facilities, flow cytometry facilities, life science labs and a neuroengineering suite.

The Middle East is another region where new labs are evident, spurred by the need for new health care facilities. In April, Qatar inaugurated its National Health Strategy 2011–2016, a government initiative to improve the country’s health care sector and to help make Qatar a hub for medical research in the region. In conjunction with the Qatar Foundation, the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is in the middle of implementing a five-year program to increase research capacity, including the creation of five facilities for researchers. These facilities will include a genomics lab, microscopy equipment and a vivarium.

Qatar will also establish the Sidra Medical and Research Center, for which the Qatar Foundation endowed $7.9 billion in 2004. The Center, which will begin operations in 2012, will include a teaching hospital and research facilities. Early research will focus on diabetes, cancer, epidemiology and feto-maternal health. Qatar has also signed agreements with international companies to establish eight labs under the Laboratory and Standardization Affairs department. The labs, some of which will be operational by 2012, are part of Qatar’s attempts to certify the quality and safety of goods and services and will focus on environment, agriculture, animals and radiation measurement.

Qatar’s Translational Research Institute at the Hamad Medical City in Doha is slated to be completed in 2013. The project aims to improve the health of the population, particularly in areas such as cancer, trauma, infectious diseases, neuroscience, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and women’s and children’s health. The Institute will unite every research organization that is part of the Hamad Medical Corporation and will support multiple research areas including bioinformatics, molecular imaging, functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, and clinical imaging.

Saudi Arabia has announced its own five-year health care plan, for which more than $181 billion has been designated. The plan includes building 121 hospitals and renovating an additional 66. The country will also build a $150 million, 120,000-sq.-ft. research facility in Dhahran, which will be used by King Fahd University, as well as outside clients, who will pay to access the facility’s advanced instrumentation for materials analysis and testing.

In Asia, consumer products companies are investing in new labs to focus on the region’s markets. Kimberly-Clark announced in July that it will open its first product development center outside North America in Korea. The Global Innovation Center will work with the firm’s US centers to develop technology and products. The company chose the Korean location because all of its key products are produced and sold in the country.

In August, cosmetics company Avon opened its first green R&D center, located in Jinqiao, China. The 40,000-sq.-ft. center focuses on developing beauty products, including skincare, personal care, color and hair care products, and houses scientists for product development, safety and quality testing, microbiology, chemical engineering and consumer research. Researchers will work with both Avon’s marketing center and the company’s Chinese marketing operations to create more customized products for the Asian market.

Cosmetics firm L’Oreal announced in July that it will invest INR 500 crore rupees ($113 million = INR 49.09 = $1) to expand in India, including the development of new labs and manufacturing plants and the establishment of an R&D center in Mumbai. The investment is to help boost the company’s annual Indian revenues, which were $210.2 million in 2010, to $1.3 billion, and to eventually increase global sales in the country from less than 1% of sales. The Mumbai center will be L’Oreal’s sixth global R&D facility and will develop products for Indian consumers.

New Laboratories

Academia

Biomedical research facility

University of Washington, Seattle, WA

The 183,000-sq.-ft. facility is the first of three planned as part of the $360 million South Lake Union project. The facility will be home to 400 researchers in the areas of immunology, rheumatology, vision sciences, kidney research and infectious disease research. Construction began in July. Operations are expected to begin in the spring of 2013.

Clinical and Translational Research Building

University of Florida Gainesville, FL

The $45 million, 120,000-sq.-ft. facility will include the 40,000-sq.-ft. Institute on Aging complex and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The Building will also be home to clinical research programs and departments. Completion is set for January 2013.

Clean Energy

Clean Energy Center

Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Boston, MA

The $19.5 million, 50,000-sq.-ft. Center will support firms developing and demonstrating energy efficiency technologies, as well as accommodate Fraunhofer’s technical R&D labs and the TechBridge program, which supports energy startups. Construction began this month.

Energy Sciences Building

US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, IL

The first of 17 planned national labs, the 160,000-sq.-ft. building, which will replace an obsolete facility, will support about 200 researchers in their efforts involving issues such as solar energy, alternative fuels, advanced battery technologies and energy storage. Construction began in August and is expected to be completed by summer 2013.

CRO

Headquarters facility

Advanced Bioscience Rockville, MD

The $12 million, 72,000-sq.-ft. facility, a relocation and expansion of the company’s previous headquarters, houses cGMP biologics manufacturing and provides laboratory space for process development, preclinical testing and basic research. The facility opened in June.

R&D Center

Covidien Shanghai, China

The 100,000-sq.-ft. facility will create products tailored to China and other emerging markets and develop new medical device technologies. Operations will begin by July 2012.