A Teaching Factory for the 21st Century: Designing a Biomanufacturing Training Facility for the State of North Carolina, a Public/Private Partnership

Andrew Rothschild, Scientific Properties

Objectives:

A public/private partnership is currently designing what is planned as the world's first-of-kind/best-in-class biomanufacturing training facility. This unique project will integrate true GMP-grade facilities, including clean rooms and commercial-grade, large-scale bioprocessing equipment, with a world-class, hands-on teaching/training facility. The facility will train the full-spectrum of biomanufacturing workers from GED-level technicians to Ph.D.-level process engineers.

The presentation will endeavor to share our experience in the application of high-performance, efficient and sustainable design principles in the development of this unique specialty teaching laboratory facility.

Findings:

Lessons learned from:

• The incorporation of sustainable principles into biomanufacturing laboratory design.
• The interrelationship of sustainable laboratory design and funding opportunities.
• The marriage of commercial-scale bioprocessing laboratories and teaching labs.
• The inclusion of distance-learning 'labs' within a more traditional 'teaching-lab' environment.
• The use of a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary, public/private laboratory facility design process.
• The expansion of 'Whole Buildings' approach into a 'Whole Enterprise' approach - i.e. principles of performance and sustainability are utilized not solely in the design of the buildings but in the operating goals for the facility with regard to the community at-large. The underlying purpose of the building - as a public/private partnership - is to benefit the community (the State of North Carolina) as a whole. Issues of safety, environmental impact, efficiency and performance are thus paramount.

Labs21 Connection:

A 'Whole Buildings' approach is being utilized in planning the entire project - not only limited to laboratory and manufacturing space but also including support spaces such as classrooms, administrative space and student housing.

Building Life-Cycle issues are addressed prospectively not only within the facility design itself but through the incorporation of hands-on training programs for facilities managers and maintenance technicians who will train in real-time on the actual building systems themselves.

Sustainable Design features are not limited to the physical site itself but are and will continue to be reflected in the public/private, community-based design and operation of the facility.

Lifecycle Cost Decision-Making is incorporated throughout the design process as would be expected for an ongoing public/private joint venture.

Commissioning and DCC controls are being planned from earliest schematic design phase to insure facility performance which is flexible, measurable and optimizable going forward.

Biography:

Andrew Rothschild is the president of Scientific Properties, LLC, a real estate services company focused on life science facilities. The firm designs, develops, builds, leases and manages lab space and also provides construction services for laboratory fit-ups and renovations. Dr. Rothschild is the owner and operator of the Triangle Biotechnology Center at Durham Central Park, a research and development facility for early stage biotechnology companies located in Research Triangle Park (Durham), North Carolina.

Scientific Properties is currently developing the region's first research park devoted exclusively to the life sciences, the Triangle Biotechnology Center at Venable. The 100,000+ square foot R & D campus is located in the historic center of the City of Medicine (Durham, North Carolina) in the heart of the Research Triangle Park region and will be an applicant for LEED™ certification. Housed in the former home of Venable Tobacco, an industrial cluster of tobacco warehouses dating from 1905 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Center is a unique blending of the past and present with historically important buildings housing cutting-edge technology.

Dr. Rothschild also serves as a private consultant on the design and development of laboratory facilities.

Dr. Rothschild previously worked as a practicing physician and served as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York. Andrew graduated from Stuyvesant High School, received his B.A. from Columbia University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and is currently a M.B.A. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School in its executive program.

In addition to bioscience facilities, Dr. Rothschild is active in adaptive re-use, infill and residential real estate development.

In 2001, Dr. Rothschild founded Laboratories for Learning, Inc., a public/private educational initiative in biotechnology. This not-for-profit partnership creates innovative educational programs in bioscience and entrepreneurship with a particular emphasis on serving the needs of minority and socio-economically disadvantaged youth.