CARBONDALE (SIU NEWS) – Southern Illinois University Carbondale will dedicate the $7.2 million BioLaunch lab, a new, 10,000-square-foot space for cutting-edge life sciences research and more, at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, with a public ribbon-cutting ceremony at the McLafferty Annex, 1785 University Press Drive, with tours of the facility to follow.

Funded in part by a $2.7 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Wet Lab Program, BioLaunch is the newest addition to the Illinois Food, Entrepreneurship, Research, and Manufacturing (iFERM) Hub, a state-of-the-art research and training suite for faculty use, students, start-up companies and private firms in the region.

BioLaunch, which contains a biotechnology core, an analytical core, a mass spectrometry core and a business annex, is the first of three major construction projects for the building. The others are a full-scale production brewery and a value-added agriculture pilot facility. In addition to BioLaunch, McLafferty Annex houses the Fermentation Science Institute, the Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, and an ultra-fast laser facility.

BioLaunch and other projects are the result of a collaboration with SIU’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, SIU’s Fermentation Science Institute and the SIU Research Park.