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The largest research building on the University of Florida campus is officially open. The new 280,000-square-foot Cancer and Genetics Research Complex will boost Florida's biotechnology research efforts and serve as a model for interdisciplinary research.
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A five-story research wing of the UF Shands Cancer Center and a six-story Genetics Institute wing are contained in the facility. Also included are the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, which provides support services to scientists-- and the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory, a premiere forensic anthropology lab. UF scientists began to occupy the building in June, working on practical problems in medicine, agriculture and environmental management. These diverse researchers come from the College of Medicine, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering and five additional Health Science Center colleges.
Dr. Doug Barrett / UF Sr. VP, Health Affairs
"This place is obviously going to be a focal point for tour collective efforts to find new cures for cancer, to find invent new genetic solutions to the pressing human, plant, animal biomedical problems facing Florida and facing the world."
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Design work for the building started in June 2002 by Hunton Brady Architects of Orlando. Ellenzweig Associates Architects of Boston was selected as lab planners and Turner/PPI Joint Venture was named construction manager. Work started in December 2003, with costs set at $84.5 million. About $30 million to help pay for the building came from the university's sale of stock that it owned in a biotechnology company called Regeneration Technologies Inc., which was spun off from UF research.
Gov. Jeb Bush
"I think that the convergence of the great scientists that are here, the people that are going to this unbelievable university, and working together with other people from other universities and research institutes located here and private business… all of that is going to create unbelievable prosperity."
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The research complex is designed to maximize collaborations among different groups of researchers and to convert scientific ideas into innovative cancer therapies, gene therapies, agricultural solutions and other beneficial technologies.
From the University of Florida Health Science Center, I'm Mike Garrison.
