Biology students use the ISB’s high-tech computer lab.

UM’s new Interdisciplinary Science Building represents potential. It’s a place that offers room to grow for the University’s burgeoning science enterprise, which expended nearly $70 million in external grants and contracts in fiscal year 2009.

ISB has four floors and a basement, but only the building exterior, first floor and part of the second floor are finished. The first floor, abuzz with a 120-seat auditorium and 30-seat computer lab, is devoted to teaching and academics, and the second floor contains two functioning laboratories. The building can accommodate about 10 more labs, as well as areas for shared equipment in the basement.

“We are a work in progress right now,” says Steve Sprang, a UM biochemistry professor who studies the three-dimensional structure of proteins involved in intercellular signaling. “We need more funding, but we can do it lab by lab if necessary.”

Sprang directs UM’s new Center for Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics, which is housed in the building and eventually will fill the second and third research floors.

“There was a desire to build up our biomolecular sciences on this campus with a focus on molecular mechanisms,” Sprang says. “This facility is a big step toward creating the research infrastructure needed by the center and the University as a whole.”

The research administration, provost, and administration and finance offices all help pay the ISB bond payment, as does Grizzly Athletics – making it one of the few basic science buildings in the nation directly supported by an athletic department.

Current plans call for ISB to have a biosafety level 3 laboratory on the fourth floor. This will allow UM researchers to work with infectious agents that cause serious diseases.

“We have several faculty members in temporary space who want to move here,” he says. “A few key grants and this place will really take off.”

Project at a Glance:

Cost: $14.8 Million
Start Date: Summer 2007
Completion: June 2009
Gross Square Footage: 61,509
Funding: 100% UM
Unique Feature: Room to Grow