HUG @ Hudson

the HudsonAlpha institute for biotechnology is located right outside my office window, so i basically watched it go up & have been dying to go inside. friday i finally got my chance. every quarter the salesforce huntsville users group (HUG) meets at different area businesses and this time it was HudsonAlpha's turn.



when you enter the buildling, you walk into a full height glass atrium.



did i mention that there are offices that jut out into the atrium & that some of their own private balconies?


a major focus of the institute is collaboration, so you will find sitting areas and chairs throughout the entire buildling. there are, also, white boards on random walls in hallways where someone could put up a problem & the next scientist who walked by could contribute his/her ideas or maybe the answer. the front of the atrium has multiple chair groupings and these fabulous white floorlamps that look like oversized table lamps.



the back of the atrium has tables and chairs for eating after you grab a snack from their cafe which btw, is open to the public. i grabbed lunch there after the meeting & it was pretty good.



the first floor also has a library named after mark smith (founder of adtran) and meeting rooms which is where my meeting was.



HudsonAlpha is a pretty amazing place and not only architecturally. the building is divided into two parts. the left side of the building houses small for-profit biotech businesses while the right side is the nonprofit portion which is home to labs and research.

there are about a dozen for-profit companies currently housed within the institute. (all using adtran ip phones, i should mention). we got a tour through open biosystems. they sell genes, dna, antibodies, and blood to researchers & they deliver within a couple days. they have a room full of huge freezers kept at -80 where the different strains live until they're needed.



education is extremely important at the institute. they have an education center where they have classes for all ages, from little tiny kids to adults. the institute works with area elementary schools, high schools, colleges, master programs, and community colleges to host on-site programs, distance programs, & internship programs (with a for-profit business or non-profit). they have teamed with calhoun communicty college to develope a 2 year program to earn an associate's degree in biotechnology. their point is that biotechnology affects everyone, is accessible by everyone, and is career path anyone can go down.

so, the research side...amazingly, the institute is the new home of rick meyers. meyers was a professor and chair of genetics at the stanford university school of medicine and director of the stanford human genome center. yeah, stanford. he's now the director of the institute & doing genomics-based research to discover new treatments and tools for improved human health.



other investigators are working in personal medicine while others are studying it at the population level. and, you've gotta love the signs outside each of the labs...



it's really really interesting stuff & it's all right here in little ol' huntsville, alabama.

p.s. april 25th is dna day (in case that's not already marked on your calendar) & HudsonAlpha is going to be giving tours of the facility.