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USC's Research Campus Could Stretch Across the State

Posted on: Thursday, 30 June 2005, 18:00 CDT

Jun. 30--The next phase of USC's research campus calls for a new, larger home for the USC Nanocenter and new health sciences buildings in Columbia, Greenville and Charleston.

Harris Pastides, USC vice president for research, outlined the university's plans at Wednesday's meeting of the S.C. Research Centers of Economic Excellence Review Board.

The estimated total cost of the four projects is $166 million.

USC president Andrew Sorensen cautioned that the university "is not precisely sure how much of this we will present" for a vote in September. USC could ask the review board to sign off on bond funding for up to half that amount.

Sorensen said USC simply wanted to give the review board an advance look at what could come.

Pastides did not reveal a location for a new USC Nanocenter, which would have an estimated cost of $40 million.

USC said it needs about 90,000 square feet of space to meet the needs of its nanotechnology research. The current Nanocenter, located in the remodeled Sumwalt College on Greene Street, occupies about 25,000 square feet.

Since its founding in 2000, the Nanocenter has experienced tremendous growth, Pastides said, and is attracting world-class academic talent.

USC recently recruited Thomas Crawford, a researcher from Seagate Technology in Pittsburgh, Pastides said. Seagate is a leader in the hard-drive industry.

Crawford will work with Richard Webb, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the first scientist hired under the endowed chairs program. Webb heads the Research Center of Economic Excellence in Nanoelectronics.

The university also is seeking a scientist to hold an endowed chair for the Research Center of Excellence in Nanocomposites.

The new nanocenter is expected to include space for commercial partners.

One of the three health-science buildings would be a $61 million clinical research building on the campus of Palmetto Health Richland, which also is the USC School of Medicine campus.

The facility, a four-story building, would be a joint project with the Health Sciences South Carolina collaborative.

The collaborative includes USC, MUSC, Clemson, Palmetto Heath, Greenville Hospital System and Spartanburg Regional Medical Center. It was formed last year as a 10-year effort to increase health-sciences research, to drive economic development, and to improve the health of South Carolinians.

About half of the building would be dedicated to Research Centers of Economic Excellence that either have been funded or that the university hopes to have funded. As well as research labs, it also would house clinics for USC and Palmetto Health, Pastides said.

Private match money for the building will come from Palmetto Health and other partners in Health Sciences South Carolina, Pastides said.

A $20 million companion building for clinical research would be built at the Greenville Hospital System campus in the Upstate.

The two buildings, along with a proposed patient tower at MUSC, would be linked electronically and would constitute a single, statewide clinical research center, Pastides said.

USC also will participate in the construction and operation of a $45 million systems biology building proposed for the campus of MUSC in Charleston.

The building would house researchers from MUSC, Clemson and USC in bioengineering, computational biology and biostatistics.

That facility is expected to be built largely with federal funds.

Earlier this month, the State Budget and Control Board approved USC's request for $58 million in bond funding to build three university buildings on the research campus.

That money, when matched by an equal amount of nonstate funds, will create Phase I of the USC Research Campus: six buildings and two parking decks.

"You will see activity in the next few months -- demolition and then the construction of the six buildings and two parking decks," Pastides said.

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STX,

Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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