PURPOSE:  Construct a new Life SCIENCES and BIOTECH BUILDING that will enhance ECU’s education, research, and workforce and economic development enterprises. This facility will provide much needed space for education, discovery, industry/university partnerships, and innovation and commercialization. Specifically, it will:

• Support education and workforce preparation at the cutting edge of science and technology
• Strengthen recruitment and retention of talented students, faculty, and workers on campus and in the region
• Aid alignment of ECU’s research strengths with federal and private funding priorities
• Catalyze development of ECU’s Millennial Campus
• Enable collocation and collaboration of university, industry and government partners, particularly in areas relevant to regional industry clusters
• Facilitate collaborative education and research efforts to address pressing regional needs and foster regional economic transformation

Taken together, these benefits will help to extend North Carolina’s “spine of prosperity” eastward beyond Raleigh to Greenville and eastern North Carolina.

REQUEST:  East Carolina University requests $15,160,000 in state appropriated planning funds

ANTICIPATED FACILITY SPECIFICATIONS: 

• Total cost:  $151.6 Million
• Size:  200,000 sq ft:
       100,000 Teaching and research (including Howell Complex replacement)
       40,000 Dedicated research
       60,000 Faculty and graduate student offices   
• University occupants:  Biology, Microbiology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, and Bioengineering departments
  Planned Institute for Bimolecular Design, Analysis and Processing (see below)
• Other Occupants:  Industry and government partners associated with regional industry clusters

DESIRED OUTCOMES:  Just as in the 1950’s when the Research Triangle Park was established, North Carolina must today invest to develop a vibrant, diversified globally competitive economy built on knowledge driven industries that provide higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs. To this end, economic developers often cite the direct correlation between successful economic regions and the presence of vibrant research universities. Just as strategic investments at NC State, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill have fueled growth of diverse academic/industrial clusters in the Triangle, so too will similar investments at ECU drive growth in clusters targeted by economic developers throughout the east. Supporting ECU’s growing research enterprise will accelerate extension of our state’s spine of prosperity, currently running from Charlotte to the Triad and the Triangle, eastward beyond Raleigh to Greenville and eastern North Carolina. Doing so will expand opportunities to develop, recruit and retain talented faculty, students and workers in the east.

MEASURABLE RETURNS:  The Life Sciences and Biotech Building will provide measurable education, innovation, and job and investment returns. These include:

• Restarting the growth path of departments now restricted by inadequate or nonexistent facilities       
• Improved recruitment and retention of talented faculty and students to the region      
• Enhanced acquisition of research funding
• Increased production of needed life science and biotechnology graduates
• Enhanced recruitment and retention of jobs and investment to the region
• Improved graduate starting salaries within the region
• Recruitment of industrial partners to be on or near the campus

LEVERAGING PREVIOUS INVESTMENTS:  One example of how the Life Sciences and Biotech Building will build upon earlier state investments at ECU is the planned Institute for Bimolecular Design, Analysis and Processing. Over the past 20 years, ECU has developed a growing network of nearly 40 interdisciplinary research scientists across several colleges and departments with experience in the area of bimolecular design, analysis, and processing. These faculty innovators represent sufficient critical mass to establish a successful center of excellence and leverage this expertise on behalf of regional industries. The planned facility will house this center, which will support new discoveries, development of new production processes and technologies, and job creation and economic growth for eastern North Carolina.

This institute is just one example of how the Life Science and Biotech Building will leverage past investments in health care and other disciplines at ECU and enable faculty from across campus to address pressing regional needs in partnership with regional firms.

CURRENT FACILITY CHALLENGES:  ECU departments that will occupy this new facility are currently housed in the Howell Science Complex, an outdated and inadequate facility requiring immediate, extensive renovations. The inadequacies of this space are restricting the growth of the Chemistry, Biology and other departments; blocking recruitment of talented faculty and students and the acquisition of research funding. The costs of needed repairs and upfit exceed the cost of new construction and the University currently does not have the swing space needed to make repairs possible for other uses.

ECU’s RESEARCH ENGINE:

• ECU’s external funding awards (research, teaching and service) has increased 28.7% from 2001-02 to 2007-08 to $44,938,680
• Example increases in external funding 2003-04 to 2007-08:
       Brody School of Medicine - 229%
       College of Health and Human Performance increased - 136%
       College of Human Ecology - 128%
       School of Nursing - 184%
       School of Allied Health - 320%
• Overhead received on grants and contracts has increased 94% over the same time to $4,556,651

RECENT EXAMPLES:  With over $970,000 in funding from NASA and NIH during the past 3 years, ECU physics professors Jeff Shinpaugh, Michael Dingfelder, Larry Toburen, and Edson Justiniano have been studying the mechanism of radiation induced damage to double stranded DNA and biologically relevant materials including human cell cultures. More than seven graduates of ECU's M.S. Medical Physics and Ph.D. Biomedical Physics programs who have received training in this research area are presently working in radiation oncology departments in hospitals and academic medical centers in eastern North Carolina providing patient care and conducting research. Robert McLawhorn, a native of eastern North Carolina and recent graduate of ECU’s Ph.D. program in biomedical physics, is currently a medical physics resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. After he completes his residency in medical physics, Robert plans to return to eastern North Carolina where he will pursue his interests in research and medical education.

With more than $400,000 in research funding from the US Army Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Professor Rickey Hicks in the Department of Chemistry is developing novel antimicrobial proteins for drug-resistant bacteria. By extensive use of molecular modeling techniques, Dr. Hicks and his Ph.D. student, Amanda Russell, incorporate non-native amino acids to enhance the selectivity and potency of the compounds they are studying.