Nova Southeastern University is planning to build one of Florida’s largest wet laboratory research facilities.

Wet labs are research facilities where chemicals, drugs, other materials or biological matter are tested and analyzed, requiring water, direct ventilation and specialized piped utilities.

NSU’s Center for Collaborative Research (CCR), opening in 2009, will be a 208,000-square-foot building on the university’s Fort Lauderdale-Davie campus. It will be a state-of-the-art, cooperative, interdisciplinary center for medical, pharmaceutical, dental, and oceanographic research.

The wet lab will be a home-base for applied health care research and medical informatics. Researchers will collaborate within this advanced environment to investigate pharmaceutical synthesis, cancer therapy, human stem cell research, biomaterials, wildlife DNA forensics and ocean biomaterials.