Industry News

The American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 was signed into law by President Barrack Obama on February 17, 2009. The $787 billion stimulus package includes $2 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science, including National Laboratories. This award will promote research in energy independence, materials science, climate science, carbon sequestration, biofuels, advanced computing, fusion energy, high-energy physics, and nuclear physics. The investments will include much-needed lab and instrumentation upgrades to support world-class research.

Catholic Healthcare West completed a 70,000-sf expansion of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in February of 2009. Comprised of a new five-story tower, the facility adds 114 private patient rooms as well as space for intensive care and labor and delivery. The expansion, which complies with new seismic standards, features two negative pressure rooms for infectious disease containment. The general contractor was Rudolph and Sletten.

Gallaudet University celebrated the opening of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in February of 2009. The building will provide research space for the departments of biology and chemistry and is specifically designed for deaf researchers. The open-plan lab houses environmental chambers, ultralow freezers, fume and sterile hoods, DNA gel equipment, and PCR thermocyclers for research in genetics, environmental science, and cancer. Construction began on the project in January of 2008 and reached completion in August of 2008.

Swansea University is planning to construct the £21.6 million Centre for NanoHealth on its Singleton campus in Swansea in the United Kingdom. Supported by £10 million in funding from the Convergence European Regional Development Fund, the integrated facility will enable researchers, clinicians, engineers, and industry partners to develop nanoscale technologies for the creation of advanced biomedical therapies. The Centre for NanoHealth will house interdisciplinary research on regenerative medicine such as tissue engineering utilizing adult stem cells.

Union College is planning to construct the $18 million Peter Irving Wold Science and Engineering Center in Schenectady, N.Y. The three-story, 35,000-sf facility will house labs and classrooms for biochemistry, environmental science, engineering, and energy research. The building will also house incubator research programs in acoustics and aerogel, a rooftop energy research laboratory, and a high performance computing laboratory. Construction is expected to begin in summer of 2009 and reach completion in fall of 2011.