University opens state-of-the-art science building

On October 29, the University dedicated the new Yale Science Building (YSB) on the footprint of the former J.W. Gibbs Laboratory.

YSB, which will serve as a central hub for interdisciplinary collaboration on Science Hill, is designed to bring natural light into lab spaces, and contains common areas intended to bring researchers together as they walk through the building. Its approximately 550 occupants include members of the departments of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology; and of molecular biophysics and biochemistry.

It includes a cryo-electron microscopy facility as well as life-microscopy, chemical-synthesis, and insectary and aquatics cores; a quantitative biology center, and physics laboratories.

“This building is completely unique among modern science buildings because of the breadth of scientific endeavor that it is designed to accommodate,” said Anna Marie Pyle, PhD, Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and chair of the YSB Building Committee. “Most important, when the future inevitably comes, the labs inside YSB can be completely dismantled to do new kinds of science that we don’t even envision today.”

“In 100 years, when people look back to this moment, they will see that this was when we put a stake in the ground for our aspirations in research and education,” added President Peter Salovey, PhD ’86.