Groundbreakings for a new laboratory and animal hospital in sight for the upcoming academic year are being used as igniters for a 1.6 million square foot expansion of the vet school, fueled by corporate partnerships.

The Flex Laboratory, set to break ground in November, will include researchers from the College of Veterinary medicine and private developers. The new animal hospital will combine private donations and state funds to subdue the packed houses in the current small-animal hospital on campus.

The proposed Biomedical Campus is a part of Centennial Campus and will use Centennial’s model of collaborating with industry partners who will use the University’s facilities and team with its faculty to further research on animal health.

‘One Medicine, One Health’

But animals aren’t the only beneficiary of the new work being done on the vet school’s campus, as the expansion is part of what Dean Warwick Arden called the “One Medicine, One Health” initiative.

“Many of the diseases that animals get are the same diseases that humans get,” Arden said. “We work on the treatment of those diseases and the diseases that are transferable between animals and man.”

According to Arden, 70 percent of all new human infectious diseases are of animal origin.

Part of the work that people such as Barbara Sherry, a professor of molecular biomedical sciences, is research that is meant to benefit both animals and humans.

Sherry is working to develop new vaccines for diseases that transfer from animals to humans.

“This would not be possible without the collaboration of [academics] and the industry partners,” she said.

Work such as this also helps with funding for the school. According to Arden, national attention is given to work done that benefits human and animals.

“National institutes of health are a quickly growing source of funding, because of the work on diseases applicable to humans and animals,” Arden said.

Corporate partnerships

Centennial Campus has thrived on leasing buildings to private corporations, teaming its faculty and students with those companies and breaking through with research and inventions.

It is this same model that the CVM looks to use to fill the large area set for expansion.

The system works by first leasing the land to a private developer, who provides for the upkeep of a building for a lease over a certain amount of time, according to Neil Olson, associate dean for the CVM.

“There is no state funding for those buildings and the private industries lease the land,” Olson said. “So there’s even revenue [for the college] off the land.”

One of those groups that the CVM has already partnered with is IAMS, which has helped to create the Pet Imaging Center.

Much of the time, the school partners with smaller, entrepreneurial companies — many of which are led by recent graduates.

“A typical partner company would be a group who is starting to develop some kind of a heart device or kidney assistant,” Olson said. “There are larger companies that could be interested, but quite often they need space, and this may not be quite big enough.”

Which is where the 1.3 million square feet left after the new hospital and Flex Building are created, as Olson said more buildings will be constructed to create for more industrial partnerships.

Need for space

With animals from across the state converging on Raleigh to visit the vet school’s large and small animal hospitals, space has become thin. The school has outgrown its small-animal unit and renovations are needed for the large-animal hospital.

“We’ve outgrown both. The new small animal hospital will double the space we have available in this building,” Olson said. “There will be some accommodations made for large animals with the vacated small animal space.”

The equine unit is also in need of upgrades, as it is missing an air conditioning unit.

“I come from Minnesota and they’ve got air conditioning in their equine hospitals,” Olson said. “So to not have it in North Carolina is quite a statement. We have a lot of infrastructure deficits in our hospitals.”

The new hospital is a 72 million dollar project, according to Arden. The school is hoping to secure 38 million of it from the state. But working in its favor is that 34 million dollars have already been found from private donors.

“That’s more than any other project, as far as I know, in the UNC system,” Arden said.Despite the increase in buildings, the school will still keep the vast majority of green space that students use as farmland to get hands-on animal experience early on in their degree program.For Amanda Demaster, a veterinary medicine student set to graduate from the program in May, a possible decrease in green space was the biggest turn-off to the expansion.”To have that farmland is such a great opportunity for students who didn’t have a farm in their backyard growing up,” Demaster said. “But [the school] is doing a good job of making that a priority and keeping most of it.”

The college is also still looking to add room for an increased enrollment. After admitting 76 students for the last several years, the school is admitting 80 this fall, and according to Olson, is hoping to increase that more in the near future.

“We have an intermediate plan in about three years or so, to go to 100,” Olson said.But according to Kristy Ellis, an incoming graduate student in veterinary medicine, this is the negative side of the vet school’s expansion.”That means there won’t be as much personal attention,” Ellis said. “From what I have heard going into the school, it becomes a very close family, and that’s one of the reasons I chose N.C. State over other schools.”For Ellis, her final choices came down to NCSU and Colorado State. But because Colorado State enrolls over 100 students in its vet school, Ellis chose NCSU.”The small atmosphere is not something they ever advertised, so I don’t think it’s something that will hurt the overall enrollment,” she said.

And while the new hospital would give enough hands-on space for the students, lecture halls would still have to be made.

“We would need to do a little bit more with bricks and mortar to accomodate the 100,” Olson said.

But as long as the partnerships between industry and academics continue, CVM administrators and faculty believe students will continue to benefit.

“From a student perspective, they conduct research in our labs,” Sherry said. “What’s good for our research is great for the students and gives them more opportunities.”