HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology has a new reason to celebrate: on Wednesday morning, the facility celebrated the opening of its new 14,000-square-foot state-of-the-art glass greenhouse and laboratory facility with a ribbon cutting ceremony featuring Governor Kay Ivey and a host of leaders in government and business across the region.

Brasfield and Gorrie served as the general contractor for the project, with Fuqua & Partners providing the architectural design.

Located at 1000 Hudson Way on the HudsonAlpha campus, the Greenhouse and Educational Learning Lab is the latest addition to the non-profit Institute’s biotech campus and is the only one of its kind in the nation, with two lab spaces, seven grow rooms, and cutting-edge technology.

The new facility will add significant lab and greenhouse space to HudsonAlpha’s Center for Plant Science and Sustainable Agriculture, further enabling the propagation of research plants to improve existing crops, develop new uses for plants, increase collaborative efforts with other organizations, and develop low cost tools and genomic sequencing to link plant genes.

The new Greenhouse and Educational space opened Wednesday morning on HudsonAlpha’s campus

HudsonAlpha President Neil Lamb, PhD expressed his gratitude to Governor Ivey for her role in bringing about the new addition as well as the follow-on phase next door, the Discovery Life Sciences Global Headquarters, which will employ hundreds of Alabamians when it opens next summer.

Lamb also thanked Mayor Battle for his support and his commitment to growing the biosciences, “making this industry a central part of Huntsville’s economy,” as well as Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong for his “leadership to Madison County and for [his] unswerving dedication to the work of HudsonAlpha.”

“These three leaders believe in our vision and have been advocates on our behalf for many years,” Lamb continued. “They are strong allies for Alabama’s scientific researchers and for the bioscience industry, and they have our thanks,” he said.

Lamb noted during his address that there are 1100 people on the HudsonAlpha campus today, “a number that continues to grow.”

“Today marks a significant milestone in our history–the dream of a greenhouse and associated space began nearly seven years ago as we looked to expand our plant-based research faculty,” Lamb explained, noting that they were actively recruiting faculty investigator Kankshita Swaminathan, PhD at that time.

“Our conversations with her highlighted the opportunities that we could pursue with research-focused greenhouses, test fields for applying those discoveries, a demonstration garden and additional spaces for education and workforce development,” Lamb said.

“Sometimes dreams take a while to become a reality. Today, we cut a ribbon and we bring this one to life.”

Swaminathan also expressed her gratitude to Gov. Ivey: “We appreciate you entrusting this new greenhouse to us, and we promise we will do good with it for the future of plant science, education, and agriculture in Alabama. We are extremely excited for the future,” she said.

HudsonAlpha founder Jim Hudson began by extending his thanks to the attendees, noting that today would have been cofounder Lonnie McMillan’s 94th birthday. With deep emotion in his voice, he added “I know he’d be proud of today’s campus and this amazing greenhouse.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey attended the ribbon cutting ceremony at HudsonAlpha on Wednesday morning for the company’s new Greenhouse and Educational Labs

“Lonnie and I often talked about all the ways we could use genomics to help mankind, and I know Lonnie would be excited about how HudsonAlpha is applying its efforts in genomics to agriculture.”

“When most of us think about HudsonAlpha’s work, they think about how we’re using genomics to improve human health,” Hudson said. “Well, we’ve been remiss, I think, in explaining to the public how much we do in plants and have done from the very beginning.”

Hudson stated that sequencing is “really hard” for plants, noting that it took four years to sequence cotton and an equal amount for the common bean. “Many, many plants are really, really hard and our team, Jeremy [Schmutz] and Jane [Grimwood], led the way in figuring out the technologies and analysis techniques that are recognized around the world in this field. Now we do cotton in a couple of weeks if we’re starting from scratch, so the advancements are just really remarkable.”

“With this state-of-the-art greenhouse and our exceptional faculty, we are positioned to engage with more research partners, to grow Alabama’s existing ag community, and to start AgTech companies that will benefit our farmers,” Hudson continued.

Hudson also stated that HudsonAlpha’s new accelerator program, done in partnership with venture capital program gener8tor Huntsville, will bring new companies from out of the state to Alabama. In addition, HudsonAlpha continues to grow.

“Lonnie and I set a goal [of] 3,000 jobs on this campus and we’re well on our way to getting there,” Hudson said, adding that by this time next year Governor Ivey will be back to cut the ribbon on the new Discovery Life Sciences building next door, “one of our best success stories from on the campus. DLS, when they open next year, will have a thousand employees from around the world in 80 countries and hundreds here on the campus. It’s an amazing success story.”

“What we’re celebrating today is what’s possible when we look for ways to actively look for ways to utilize and strengthen our public-private partnerships,” said Gov. Ivey. “This facility is a key to attracting new researchers while also inspiring the next generation of plant scientists.”

Ivey credited Dr. Lamb with getting the state’s STEM Council up and running. “Without the help of everyone here today Alabama would not be making such important and necessary strides in STEM education, which we all know is so critical for our state’s continued success.”

Ivey noted that Alabama has a long history of scientific innovation and stressed the need to continue looking to the future. “We must work together to solve the problems that others deemed impossible to solve. Let’s work to not only move Alabama forward, but also the entire world. Together we can ensure that Alabama will lead the way in innovation. This greenhouse marks yet another exciting chapter in HudsonAlpha’s success story,” she concluded.

Images provided by Dawn Suiter, the Huntsville Business Journal.