UI asking to move forward with 'mouse' lab, Iowa River Landing expansion

The University of Iowa is asking the Board of Regents for permission to move ahead on two construction projects – one aimed at furthering diabetes research and another that would expand the use of its Iowa River Landing clinic.

The first project proposal would modernize about 5,000 square feet of research space on the third floor of the UI Medical Laboratories Building for a “mouse metabolic phenotyping core facility.” Such a facility is needed to support diabetes-related research occurring within the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center – established in 2008 through a $25 million gift.

The $3 million project would continue upgrades to the Medical Laboratories Building, which was built in 1927 and has undergone renovations in recent years.

The project at the UI's Iowa River Landing clinic, which has been accepting patients for more than a year, would further develop part of its fourth level and its entire fifth level. The UI is asking the regents to allow that development by approving the “schematic design and project and description budget” for the clinic.

The project would develop a multi-disciplinary procedure suite on the fifth level by finishing about 20,000 square feet of shelled-in space, and it would include the development of five procedure rooms.

“It would be made operational when justified based on patient volume and clinical need,” according to regent documents.

UI officials say a “significant” number of procedures to be performed in the new space would be “endoscopic procedures directed toward the early diagnosis and prevention of colorectal cancer.”

The project's budget of $8.3 million would be paid for by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics building usage funds.