Progress continues on multi-disciplinary research institute

Construction of a new building for UF’s genetics, cancer and biotechnology research centers should be under way by late fall, with a tentative completion anticipated in spring 2006.

The project will result in a multidisciplinary biomedical research facility for the UF Genetics Institute, the UF Shands Cancer Center and the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research near the intersection of Mowry Road and North-South Drive. It will include research laboratories, animal-research facilities, faculty and administrative offices, and a rooftop greenhouse.

“The building can be described as kind of an offset ‘H,’ with shared facilities in the crossover section,” said Greg Tyler, a research programs coordinator at UF Shands Cancer Center.

The Genetics Institute wing will have six stories facing north toward Lake Alice and Mowry Road, while the UF Shands Cancer Center research wing will have five stories on the south side of the building, near the existing Jerry and Judith Davis Cancer Center. The Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research will be mainly on the first floor of the south wing of the building. In all, the new facility will cover more than 350,000 square feet.

“The outer appearance will be of two buildings connected by a glass atrium,” said Nicholas Muzyczka, Ph.D., interim director of the UF Genetics Institute. “The interior will feature basic lab design with conventional benches, but the labs will have their own support rooms and there will be working hallways wide enough to accommodate heavy equipment. ”

Keeping with the gothic style adopted by the Hunton Brady Architects in Orlando and Ellenzweig Associates Architects in Boston, the administrative rooms and laboratories will have a signature outward appearance.

Approximately 40 large labs, which can be divided into smaller modules, and their support facilities on the second, third and fourth floors will be devoted to research. Those are in addition to bionformatics and microarrays facilities on the first floor, the transgenic facility on the fifth floor and an auditorium that will seat more than 200. In addition, the fifth floor will contain a secured SPF – specific pathogen free – vivarium.

“The vivarium will be used for gowning and showering while entering and exiting to prevent contamination of animals,” Muzyczka said.

“These barriers are important for working with animals with supressed immune systems, which are used to model human tissue for gene-therapy purposes. We finally will have a viable place to make ‘knockouts,’ in which specific genes are deactivated in these transgenic animals to determine gene function.”

The building also will house the C.A. Pound Laboratory and the Maples Center for Forensic Medicine on the ground level of the north wing as well as the energy equipment rooms. The administration offices will be mainly on the first floor.

Sheldon Schuster, Ph.D., directs the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research while W. Stratford May Jr., M.D., Ph.D., directs the UF Shands Cancer Center. A search committee composed of members from the College of Medicine, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences currently is looking for a permanent director for the UF Genetics Institute, Muzyczka said.

About 600 people will move into the building from throughout the university, including personnel from the UF Health Science Center, UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Its capacity is 900.

“Locating genetics, cancer and biotechnology research in one complex is a good way to share resources,” said project manager Frank Javaheri of the UF Facilities Planning and Construction Division. “In addition, it will consolidate research that’s now scattered throughout the campus.”