The University of Nebraska-Lincoln broke ground recently on a new virology research building, the Ken Morrison Life Sciences Research Center.
The $18.6 million, 70,000-square-foot building will house laboratories and offices for the Nebraska Center for Virology.
The building will provide a research facility designed to foster interaction and collaboration among researchers, visiting fellows, students and staff.
It will include full laboratories for 12 scientists plus separate spaces for tissue culture work, a polymerase chain reaction suite, cold and dark rooms, shared microscopy and cell-flow cytometry facilities and a biological safety level-3 research laboratory suite.
The building will provide virology center researchers much needed space to continue and expand on research under way at UNL’s George W. Beadle Center for Genetics and Research, where the center is now headquartered.
Construction on the site begins later this fall on UNL’s East Campus.
The Nebraska Center for Virology was established in 2000 as a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence with a five-year, $10.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
In 2005, the center received a second, five-year grant of $10.6 million. The center links scientists at UNL, UNMC and Creighton University. Center researchers are working to understand the molecular mechanisms that diverse viruses employ to cause diseases.
“The Nebraska Center for Virology is a signature research program here at UNL and we’re very proud of the world class research team we’ve established,” said Prem Paul, UNL’s vice chancellor for research.
UNMC’s Howard Gendelman, M.D., chairman of the department of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience and director of the Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders, said the virology center will facilitate a diverse array of virus studies.
“It brings a lot of different types of people together,” Dr. Gendelman said. “From people studying AIDS to people studying plant viruses in agriculture. It’s good for the scientists and it’s good to build expertise in various different fields.”
Ken Morrison, a Hastings native, university advocate and University of Nebraska Foundation trustee, provided the lead gift for the building. This is the latest of Morrison’s numerous contributions to the university, which have included establishing the Morrison Biotechnology Fund, supporting UNL’s microscopy research facility at the Beadle Center and funding the Kenneth Morrison professorship in food engineering.
“Ken Morrison’s historic support of the life sciences is extraordinary,” UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman said. “Our university has benefited tremendously from his generosity.”