Photo by Keith Brannon.
Tulane University has announced a major renovation of the lab space in the J. Bennett Johnston Health and Environmental Research Building.
The $13.5 million lab renovation is the first major downtown research space joining the schools of Medicine, Science and Engineering, and Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
Roughly 37,500 square feet of space on three floors of the building will be transformed from traditional, compartmentalized lab space into five large, open areas. The space, named the “ballroom labs,” will be a hub for the school’s disciplines.
According to Tulane, the labs are being reconfigured based on research needs. The goal of the renovation is to enhance the school’s medical research output. The labs will provide an opportunity for researchers from different schools and disciplines to work closely together.
“This is really marvelous because the biomedical engineers clearly have a common vision with investigators in the schools of medicine and public health, but they have not have the opportunity to interact regularly. Now they will,” said Laura Levy, VP of Research at Tulane. “Strategically it makes sense because the solution to many of the most complex and intractable problems in medicine, science and engineering will be found at the interfaces of the disciplines.”