The Duke University Board of Trustees on Friday approved modifying the Medical Science Research Building II (MSRB II) now under construction to provide biomedical research space for the Duke Human Vaccine Institute.
The modification will cost approximately $5 million. MSRB II is being built at the corner of Research Drive and Erwin Road.
The vaccine institute, directed by Dr. Barton Haynes, supports interdisciplinary efforts across Duke to develop vaccines and therapeutics for HIV and other emerging infections that threaten health. The institute's immediate goal is to prepare a malaria/tuberculosis/HIV vaccine to be tested in clinical trials by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This work is funded by NIH.
Duke and the vaccine institute are also the headquarters for the Southeastern Regional Center of Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense, a collaboration between researchers from Duke, Emory University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Florida, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The consortium's initial work focuses on developing new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments for orthopoxviruses (including smallpox and monkeypox), Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) and Y. pestis, the bacteria that cause plague.
The four-level medical science building will support the growing need for research space for a number of Duke centers and departments, including the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Stedman Nutrition Center, the Department of Surgery and the Department of Medicine.
In other business, the trustees:
-- Approved renaming the Department of Art and Art History to the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies. The reason for the new name, said department chair Patricia Leighten, is to acknowledge the wider realm of faculty members' research interests.
"In the past, painting, architecture and sculpture were considered the 'elevated arts' and the others were considered minor," Leighten said. "But in the past few decades there have been enormous intellectual changes. Duke is in the vanguard of this, helping to broaden notions of what constitutes an interesting image."
Leighten said her own current research into Picasso's use of newspaper in his collages is an example of this change. In the past, attention to the content of the newspaper clips would have been dismissed as irrelevant.
The department's new name also reflects changes in the classroom as faculty members incorporate "the larger field of visual culture" into the way they teach, Leighten added.
-- Were expected to meet Friday afternoon to discuss long-range planning initiatives for the university.
-- Approved running a chilled water line to Duke University Hospital. Chilled water systems provide air conditioning to buildings. The cost of the project is not to exceed $3.6 million.