The newest buildings at the University of Arizona in Tucson have a purpose beyond the obvious.
The UofA BIO5 Institute’s Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building and the UofA College of Medicine’s Medical Research Building were designed to encourage collaboration among scientists from the many different UofA colleges, departments and disciplines who will create life-saving therapies, cure diseases and maybe even help feed the world, according to university officials.
The buildings, which will both be dedicated Dec. 1, are peppered with attractively decorated meeting rooms of various sizes, for everything from one-on-one chats over coffee to conference room-sized brainstorming sessions.
Even their labs are nothing like the windowless, fluorescent-lit, locked-door science tombs of the past. There are
windows, natural light and modern colors nearly everywhere.
“There’s really nothing better than good space,” Keith Joiner, dean of the College of Medicine, said while sitting at a table in a glass-walled lobby of the Medical Research Building.
Keating and the MRB, as the buildings are known, cover most of a square block and are joined by enclosed walkways and an inverted white metal frame that soars over their shared courtyard.
To be assigned lab space in Keating, researchers must have what Vicki Chandler, director of the BIO5 Institute, calls “the collaboration gene.”
They were chosen for the ability to work with others and for doing the kind of research administrators wanted to encourage, Ms. Chandler said.
Ms. Chandler said the laboratories can be quickly reconfigured for a new scientist should the present occupant fall idle or not bring in the grant money that fuels university-based research.