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The University of Connecticut’s stem cell program is a cross-campus enterprise, involving researchers and laboratories at the Center for Regenerative Biology, on the Storrs campus, and at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. On both campuses, research teams are unlocking the secrets of stem cells in modern, state-of-the-art facilities.

The Center for Regenerative Biology is an interdepartmental research center focusing on the enormous potential for therapeutic production of new cells, tissues and organs that has been made possible only in the past few years, thanks to research advances. Housed in a new arc-shaped building that opened in 2004, a product of UConn’s sweeping $2.3 billion UCONN 2000 program expansion, the Center houses five separate laboratories.

In Farmington, the University has just purchased the former FarmTech building, which is located across the street from the UConn Health Center’s campus. The nearly 113,000-square-foot building will be completely renovated to serve as the home of a new stem cell institute. It will also house related interdisciplinary research programs.

To expand on stem cell research and related scientific inquiries, the new institute will unite UConn scientists in a cross-disciplinary, collaborative setting that will help to accelerate stem cell discoveries while enhancing UConn’s role as a leader in stem cell research.

Situated on 24 acres of land, the new facility's renovation is expected to be completed in 2009. A leading-edge laboratory design architecture firm will be selected in the near future to design the renovation of the FarmTech building to house both research laboratories and incubator space for businesses eager to commercialize stem cell science.

A centerpiece of the new institute will be UConn’s human embryonic cell core laboratory, which is now located at the Health Center. That facility was developed when UConn launched its 10-year stem cell research program in 2005 and, on its own initiative, invested more than $2 million to recruit a team of scientists with hands-on expertise in human embryonic stem cells. Those experts manage the core laboratory, providing support to all of the UConn teams engaged in stem cell research, and they train scientists how to culture stem cells.

Until the new institute opens, laboratories devoted to stem cell research projects will continue to be housed in the Health Center’s existing facilities.