Life Science Laboratories
Life Science Laboratories (LSL)
The $160 million Life Science Laboratories (LSL), which opened in 2013, is designed for 21st century research: it is designed to facilitate the type of interdisciplinary collaboration and applied research that can shorten that gap between scientific innovation and technological advancement.
The opportunities afforded with the new building, which is part of the campus’s fast-growing life sciences precinct, lie in both its state-of-the-art facilities and the way research will be conducted. The design allows for a collaborative environment, encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas between researchers from various fields and from industry.
Faculty researching similar issues work in closer proximity and across disciplines through the LSL's flexible open research labs, which offer equipment alcoves, enclosed support labs, shared platform labs and faculty offices, labs, conference rooms, colloquia, and food serving areas. The north wing of the LSL houses 32 faculty labs.
The Institute for Applied Life Sciences
IALS was established in 2014, based on a total investment of more than $150 million from the Massachusetts Life Science Center (MLSC) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Our vision for the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) is to translate fundamental research into innovative product candidates, technologies, and services that deliver benefits to human health and well-being. To achieve this vision we combine deep and interdisciplinary expertise of more than 200 faculty led research groups from 29 departments on the UMass Amherst campus, with the diverse capabilities from industry and government partners.
The Institute is organized into three large centers that focus on creating state-of-the-art wearable devices in the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring (CPHM), new types of biomolecule/delivery vehicle combinations in the Center for Bioactive Delivery (CBD), and discovering novel disease-related cellular pathways, drug-targets, and therapeutic candidates in the Models to Medicine (M2M) Center.
IALS has also just launched more than 30 Core Facilities – that facilitate a wide range of projects, from device prototyping, precision manufacturing and roll-to-roll fabrication, to human motion and gait studies, calorimetry, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, as well as, EEG and sleep studies. These facilities are equally accessible to academic, government, and industry collaborators.
In close proximity to these core facilities are “Collaboratories” – lab space available to industry partners to work closely with and alongside IALS faculty. Our Industry Sabbatical Program allows industry researchers to spend time embedded in UMass research laboratories or in the IALS Core Facilities.
In summary, IALS works with industry partners to combine the best in academic innovation with an industry-like focus on delivering commercially significant products, services, and technologies over a defined timeline. Hence, by design, IALS is product-focused, interdisciplinary, collaborative, outward-looking, and entrepreneurial.