Photo by Christopher Gannon.
With the goal of moving in the first faculty members by mid-March, work is underway to install furniture and information technology at the Advanced Teaching and Research Building (ATRB). The building will be the new home of the plant pathology and microbiology department. It will house some of the faculty and graduate students from two other departments: entomology and genetics, development and cell biology.
ATRB also contains research labs, teaching labs, formal and informal collaboration spaces, and a 120-seat lecture hall that will join the university's general classroom inventory. And that's just the first four floors. Earlier this month, the unfinished top floor received state Board of Regents approval to become the home of the Iowa State-based Nanovaccine Institute. Design planning has begun, with fifth-floor occupancy targeted for fall 2019.
ATRB and the Bessey Hall addition are the two pieces of a multiyear effort to update Iowa State's biosciences facilities. Funding for the $88 million project came from state appropriations, university funds, private gifts and facilities bonds.
