Status of bioengineering facility to be announced

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State officials are expected to announce the status of partial funding for the proposed multimillion dollar Bio Engineering Facility on Thursday, said Kurt Weiss, spokesman for the State Budget Office.

Authorization to plan for the $40 million research facility near the Life Sciences Building and Clinical Center on south campus was approved in September 2011 by the MSU Board of Trustees.

At the end of January, university officials submitted a request for $30 million in state capital outlay funding to be used strictly for the facility’s construction, said Barbara Kranz, director of MSU Facilities Planning and Space Management, adding if not approved, it will remain on officials’ capital outlay list to be requested again in the future.

The remaining $10 million in funding is slated to come from MSU’s general fund, she said. The Board of Trustees must vote whether to proceed with the project at a future meeting, and construction dates have not yet been set for the facility.

Weiss declined to speculate on whether state funding would be approved and what officials’ next steps might be after Thursday’s scheduled announcement, but said the request has been received and reviewed.

“The governor is very interested in investing in the infrastructure of the state,” he said.

The building is intended to be a multi-college facility for colleges including the College of Human Medicine, or CHM, the College of Engineering and the College of Natural Science to engage in research, said Jeffrey Dwyer, associate dean for research and community engagement at the CHM.

From building labs to study mobility, human robotics and nanotechnology for medical purposes, the building will complement the university’s medical initiatives across the state, most recently in Grand Rapids and Flint, Dwyer said.

“It’s important to remember the core of what we do is in East Lansing,” he said, adding the university needs additional research space given researchers’ work and their recruitment.

“We’re doing everything we can to refresh existing space and frankly, we’re running out of room — (this is) key in our ability to grow.”

Three-hundred CHM students reside in East Lansing, and about another 300 study at the Grand Rapids-based Secchia Center, Dwyer said.

This possible construction continues the work of the past few years to build the university’s research portfolio across the state, he said. Seven campuses of the college have a presence in Michigan for various initiatives.

“It’s a great opportunity and hopefully the state will be able to find the resources (for the facility),” Kranz said.

Council of Graduate Students Medical School Liaison Suzy Borkowski seconded Kranz’s wishes and said any local opportunity to engage in medical research would be phenomenal, especially for students on the East Lansing campus.

“One of the major factors in making MSU’s (CHM) a competitive university is its ability to provide students with research opportunities,” she said.

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