Yesterday, officials from the University of Rhode Island, Governor Carcieri, Rhode Island's congressional delegation and members of the Rhode Island General Assembly, and business leaders including Tom Ryan of CVS and Kimball Hall of Amgen joined ~500 individuals in the ribbon-cutting ceremony of URI's newest technology hub, its Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences.

The "green" facility is 140,000 square feet and houses modern teaching labs, cutting-edge research labs, high-tech facilities for DNA sequencing and analysis, etc.

See the following pieces in the Providence Journal regarding this new facility--

http://www.projo.com/news/content/Biotech_01-25-09_KPD14PP_v91.33e3fb4.html 

http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/01/green-is-on-at.html 

 In this new facility, bioenergy, animal health, marine resources and genomics, developmental and sensory biology, vaccine development and other areas of life and environmental sciences will be studied, researched and draw funding from numerous private and public sources.

It is an incredible structure and while there are many people to congratulate on the opening of this grand facility, chief among them are Jeff Seemann, Dean, URI's College of Environment and Life Sciences and Richard "Rick" Rhodes, Associate Dean, Research and Outreach.

Additionally, this facility boasts a 100-seat and 300-seat auditoriums and wanted to let the RI NEXUS community know about this development as further collaborations between our state's IT and digital media and leading state university have never been more fertile. Also, you may want to have future events and activities hosted at this facility. Either way, it's a must-see!