Industry News

Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System is engaged in a $750 million renovation and expansion of its medical campus in Palo Alto, Calif.

The Department of Health occupied its 5,285-sf BSL-3 laboratory in Washington, D.C., on May 29, 2008. Planning for the $9.6 million project began in 1999. The facility will support rapid identification of emerging disease agents and potential biological threats with the capacity to perform up to 30,000 tests per year.

Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries is constructing the Center for Advanced Environmental Research (CAER) in Beacon, N.Y. Designed by Croxton Collaborative Architects and built by Turner Construction, the 30,000-sf research facility will support the development of river system monitoring technologies including networking and data analysis related to environmental sensors. The River and Estuary Observatory Network (REON) will be headquartered in the new facility.

DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol is partnering with the University of Tennessee Research Foundation to build a cellulosic ethanol R&D facility and pilot-scale biorefinery in Vonore, Tenn. Developing the commercial package for DDCE’s cellulosic ethanol technology, the plant includes a process development unit (PDU). Sited in the Niles Ferry Industrial Park, the facility will utilize corn stover and switchgrass, two non-food biomass feedstocks, to produce 250,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually.

University of Tennessee Medical Center broke ground in July of 2008 on a $26 million heart hospital in Knoxville. Slated for completion in 2010, the four-story facility will house inpatient care including a 24-bed cardiovascular ICU for the Heart Lung Vascular Institute.