New Bioscience Research Building Opens

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is proud to announce the grand opening of a major facility on campus: the five-story, 140,000-square-foot Bioscience Research Building.

The $45 million structure houses the Border Biomedical Research Center (BBRC), supported by the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory, where faculty scientists are conducting research on infectious diseases.

The facilities will enable UTEP to expand its biomedical and health research programs, recruit and retain highly competitive researcher-teachers, and enrich learning experiences for UTEP’s graduate and undergraduate students.

“This celebration symbolizes both the enormous progress that UTEP has made during the past 10 years in expanding its research agenda, especially in the biomedical and health sciences, and the UT System’s significant investment in UTEP’s capacity-building,” said James Huffines, chairman of The University of Texas System Board of Regents and a guest speaker at the grand opening ceremony.

“Across the UTEP campus today, there are highly competitive researchers conducting basic scientific research and developing technologies that address major health issues, especially those that are more prevalent in this U.S.-Mexico border region,” he added.

The grand opening and ribbon-cutting took place Sept. 3 in front of the new building. Special guests included Huffines and his wife, Patty; Dr. David Prior, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs for the UT System; UTEP President Diana Natalicio; and Sidney McNairy, Ph.D., D.Sc., director of the research infrastructure division of the National Center for Research Resources at the NIH.

Also attending were the presidents of the three major national medical associations: Dr. James Rohack of the American Medical Association, Dr. Willarda Edwards of the National Medical Association, and Dr. Elena Rios of the National Hispanic Medical Association. Both Rohack and Edwards are UTEP alumni.

Anny Morrobel-Sosa, Ph.D., dean of the College of Science, and Robert Kirken, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, also spoke at the ceremony.

As part of the grand opening celebration, McNairy was the keynote speaker for a panel on Hispanic and border health issues titled “Investments in Minority-Institution Capacity-Building.” McNairy, a scientist administrator, biochemist, educator and researcher, is well known for his commitment to enhancing the nation’s biomedical research capacity, especially at institutions that serve large numbers of Hispanic and black students. Other panelists included Kirken and UTEP biological sciences faculty members June Kan-Mitchell, Ph.D.; Kristine Garza, Ph.D; and Igor C. Almeida, Ph.D.; and Psychology Assistant Professor Laura E. O’Dell, Ph.D.

The UTEP Biological Sciences Department serves 3,500 students and approximately 850 biology majors. Students and faculty have access to six core facilities in the Border Biomedical Research Center, part of the new Bioscience Research Building. The state-of-the-art equipment, which allows investigators to conduct activities such as genomics and cell-based image analysis, will advance inquiries into important health issues along the U.S.-Mexico border, including neuroscience and metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes; infectious diseases such as influenza, HIV/AIDS and West Nile virus; and health disparities among different population groups.

“This new facility aligns with UTEP’s mission to serve the needs of our Paso del Norte region and moves us toward our goal of serving as a model for U.S. higher education in the 21st century,” Natalicio said during the grand opening ceremony.

The new building reflects the growing significance of biomedical research on the UTEP campus. The Biological Sciences Department had 19 tenured or tenure-track faculty in 1992, and fewer than half of them participated in biomedical research. Today, there are 32 tenured or tenure-track faculty members, with approximately 70 percent of them engaged in new research—a figure that should keep climbing as the University attracts more investigators and students.

“The most critical element in building excellence at a university is faculty quality,” Natalicio said. “Recruiting and retaining highly competitive faculty requires not only competitive salaries, but also state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, a range of doctoral programs and the outstanding graduate students they attract, and a campus climate that fosters research productivity.”

UTEP now ranks fourth among all 35 Texas public universities in federal research funding, and is included on the National Science Foundation’s list of the Top 200 research universities in the United States. In the last year alone, UTEP faculty researchers secured nearly $77 million in new grant awards. UTEP also is one of seven public institutions in Texas to be designated by the Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas legislature as an “Emerging Tier One University.”