Construction is well underway on a 125,000-square-foot research center that will allow the School of Public Health to further advance the public’s health through research and education in epidemiology and infectious disease, nutrition and environmental health.

The new research center, estimated to cost $38.6 million to build, will more than double the School’s laboratory research space. Featured will be state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, a high-tech auditorium and office space for students, faculty and support staff in the School’s departments of epidemiology, nutrition, and environmental sciences and engineering. Once completed in 2004, the new facilities will house research on how to prevent the spread of HIV infection, how diet affects cancer risk, how to improve the quality of drinking water worldwide and other issues.

Located adjacent to Rosenau Hall’s south side between Columbia and Pittsboro streets, the new building will link to both Rosenau Hall and McGavran-Greenberg Hall. Construction began in early July.

The University is leveraging both private and public funds to make the research center possible. Other funding sources are the statewide higher education improvement bonds and overhead receipts, the funds research universities receive from the federal government to reimburse the cost of conducting scientific work.

Leadership gifts of $1 million or more from the American Institute for Cancer
Research, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, and Dr. Bill Jordan of Fayetteville, a former member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, have provided a strong start to the School’s private fund-raising efforts for the building.

Dean Bill Roper hosted a brief ceremony at the future site of the new center in May, joined by University administrators and business leaders who have been instrumental in the School’s fund-raising efforts. “The events of September 11th made our nation and the world keenly aware of the importance of public health,” Roper said. “Now, more than ever, we need to be focused on the future and we need this new facility to continue and extend the important work of our school.”

To learn more or to inquire about making a contribution to the project, please contact Jim Ervin, assistant director of development, at 919.966.8369 or jim_ervin@unc.edu.

A WORD FROM THE DEAN

SCHOOL NEWS

RESEARCH OUTCOMES

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

GIFTS AND GRANTS

	Carolina Public Health welcomes your comments and story suggestions. Send them to: Wendy Tanson Office of External Affairs School of Public Health UNC campus 422 Rosenau Hall CB #7400 Chapel Hill,NC 27599-7400. Or e-mail: wtanson@unc.edu.