The Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building at the Stanford University School of Medicine features 200,000 square feet of floor space and will serve roughly 550 researchers, among them faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, students and staff members.
"It's an extraordinary facility with so many possibilities," said Ruthann Richter, a spokeswoman for the Stanford University School of Medicine. "You're going to have the best brains in the country working concertedly in a research area that has so much promise."
The four-story building was constructed over a period of two years with a $43.6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a $75 million donation from businessman and philanthropist Lorry Lokey, who founded Business Wire.
The rest of the money came from private donations and university funds.
The top level will house the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, which used to be located off campus on Arastradero Road. Faculty members from the Stanford Cancer Center will occupy the second floor.
Neuroscience labs and the stem cell institute's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education will be located on the ground floor.
The basement will house the tissue bank and the animal facilities. A tunnel provides a route for deliveries of equipment to nearby buildings.
The building has ample housing space for large centrifuges, freezers and tissue culture rooms, along with a dedicated tissue bank to store stem cell lines and animal and human tissues.
Other features include a state-of-the-art animal research facility with biometric entry codes, air showers and recyclable mouse cages.
The building additionally provides resources that one participating researcher said are rare in other parts of the country, such as cell-sorting capabilities and advanced single-cell genetic-profiling equipment.
The dedication ceremony will be held at 4 p.m.
