The existing Neuroscience Institute at the campus and the Center for Biotechnology and Drug Design will move to the new building. Laboratories, biology, chemistry, nursing, nutrition, physical health, and physical and respiratory therapy classes will be held in the science center. The building, which is located on the corner of Decatur and Piedmont streets, will also house offices.
The ten-story facility has been equipped with new technology and research space. Thirty two department-specific teaching labs and classrooms are located on the first four floors. The first floor also houses a 100-seat auditorium. The fifth to ninth floors are said to have ‘research and office space’, according to the layout information given in the section ‘Advancing Science and Learning’ on the Georgia State Website.
Georgia State’s Center for Biotechnology and Drug Design regularly invites scientists who are working on treatments and diagnostics for critical diseases. Biologists who conduct research on Molecular Basis of Disease initiative, genetic anomalies, HIV/AIDs and infectious diseases will also work in the new science center. The new science facility will provide them with many technologies to aid in their research such as a 200-million pixel array of computer screens, considered as a ‘visualization wall’, which will display many sets of data for researchers. Graduate nurses will also have access to interactive patient simulators.
The new center has been touted as advancing scientific understanding, health innovation and health education in the State and also hopes to attract more researchers.
The facility has been named after Georgia State alumni Parker H. Pete Petit. It will start functioning from the Fall 2010 semester and is expected to have over 2,000 students.
