The imminent grand opening of the Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB) represents the start of another new era in the evolution of interdisciplinary bioresearch at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It also marks the beginning of a new era for the Petit Institute for Biotechnology and Bioscience as a hub of state-of-the-art core facilities.

When EBB opens later this year, with its 220,000 square-feet of research space devoted to collaborative biomedical discoveries with partners like Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, it will feature five new core facilities (and a relocated sixth), all of them administered by the Petit Institute.

“State-of-the-art core facilities are essential to cutting edge interdisciplinary research,” says Petit Institute Executive Director Bob Guldberg. “The expansion of core facilities into EBB will help meet the demands of Georgia Tech’s growing bio-community and provide tremendous new capabilities for our faculty and students.”

Through the years, more than $24 million has been invested in state of the art research facilities at the Petit Institute, which currently administers 11 (soon to be 16) core facilities. The five new facilities will be focused on microscopy, cytometry, molecular evolution, biopolymer characterization, and systems mass spectrometry. A sixth core, genome analysis, is relocating from the Boggs Building. The Core Facilities Advisory Committee will include directors from both the Petit Institute and EBB.

“We are still going to be one big group of core facilities under the Petit Institute umbrella. But the umbrella is getting bigger,” says Steve Woodard, manager of core facilities for the Petit Institute.

Some of the new core equipment has been procured and delivered, according to Woodard, and more is on the way as final touches continue apace at EBB, which is on 10th Street between Atlantic and State streets.

“The new equipment in EBB will complement our existing equipment, providing researchers with unprecedented capacity,” says Steve Woodard, manager of core facilities for the Petit Institute. “There are few limitations to what they can do in their research from an equipment perspective. They’ll have the right tools handy.”

CONTACT:

Jerry Grillo
Communications Officer II
Parker H. Petit Institute for
Bioengineering and Bioscience