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New bioscience center takes shape on old Stanley Hall site
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California
Gov. Gray Davis joined Chancellor Robert Berdahl (left) and
outgoing UC President Richard Atkinson (right) as they broke
ground at the site for the new Stanley Center last spring.
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO |
A high-tech center will rise from the rubble of old Stanley Hall,
tripling the former building’s capacity and providing state-of-the-art
laboratories for collaborative research that unites engineering
with the physical and biological sciences.
FACTS
ABOUT THE NEW CENTER
The Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility is the largest
construction undertaking on campus in 20 years. It will be home
to the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research
(QB3) and the College’s Department of Bioengineering and
will provide laboratory space for the Center for Information Technology
Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).
Gov. Gray Davis was on hand at groundbreaking ceremonies in May
to launch construction where old Stanley Hall — half a century
old, scientifically outmoded, and seismically unsafe — was
demolished to make way for what will be the largest research building
on campus. Both QB3 and CITRIS grew out of the California Institutes
for Science and Innovation (Cal-ISI), a project spearheaded by
Davis to harness state and industry resources in support of interdisciplinary
research and teaching in the biosciences.
"The Stanley Center will support the most up-to-date cross-disciplinary
approaches in biomedical and bioengineering research," said
Thomas Budinger, chairman of the College’s Department of
Bioengineering. "With its specialized teaching labs and classrooms,
it will significantly advance the education of undergraduate and
graduate students in biotechnology and bioengineering and serve
as the training ground for the next generation of biomedical scientists."
When complete, the center will contain 40 research and teaching
labs, each designed to accommodate 10 to 20 scientists, as well
as classrooms, seminar facilities, and the innovative Bio-Nano
Technology Center, dedicated to fabricating sub-microscopic bio-MEMS
and robotic devices. It will also house the west coast’s
only 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, a
powerful device that can create images of protein structure on
the molecular level. The spectrometer will be used to facilitate
a better understanding of protein composition and dynamics, which
is essential to tackle diseases and develop drugs to treat them.
The building is the first phase of the Health Sciences Initiative,
a campuswide thrust to update laboratory space for 21st century
research and spur new faculty hires and innovation at the intersection
of the biological and physical sciences. The state has contributed
$53.1 million to the new building from Cal-ISI and seismic retrofit
funds. The balance comes from campus funds and private support.
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