MCB Profs Plan Move to New Lab

The University has begun consulting with biology professors set to be displaced from their laboratories, marking top administrators’ first major attempt to consult affected faculty since the move was conceived.

On Monday, three professors in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology met with outside architects and FAS physical resources officials to discuss the renovations of the displaced professors’ future laboratories in the Northwest Science Building.

MCB professor Guido Guidotti said it was confirmed at the meeting that he and fellow biology researchers Nancy Kleckner and Matthew Meselson will move down the street into the first floor of Northwest. All three biology professors currently occupy the Sherman-Fairchild Building.

Details on the move have come slowly since the University, shifting its plans in response to a financial downturn, first announced that several MCB professors would be relocated to make room for stem cell researchers previously bound for Harvard’s expanded campus in Allston.

Payette Associates—a local architectural firm that also helped design the now-delayed Allston Science Complex—surveyed the current laboratory spaces in Fairchild to study how future rooms in Northwest can be tailored to the MCB professors’ specific research needs, Guidotti said.

“Every space is different, so everybody needs to see how to translate where they are now to the next space,” Guidotti said. “That’s why the architects were there: to try and make a representation of what might be [in Northwest].”

Northwest was built as a combination of fully finished spaces and “shell” spaces, or rooms that can be adapted to meet the needs of specific faculty members, said Linda Snyder, associate executive dean of physical resources and planning. But she emphasized that spaces in Northwest allocated for biology professors will be completely finished and ready for use before laboratory staff and faculty move in.

The three displaced professors will move into a space that is currently “a large open unfinished space that resembles an empty warehouse,” one MCB professor wrote in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

“As I understand it, the architect thinks the space has significant deficiencies but perhaps it will turn out OK,” wrote the individual, who asked to not be named in order to preserve his relationship with the University. “This does however seem a harsh way to treat three members of the National Academy.”

Snyder, the physical resources dean, said the administration has been working “very closely” with all of the affected faculty on the development of their new laboratories. But the remark contrasts starkly with what many biology professors have called an exclusion from discussions about a move that directly affects them and their research.

For many MCB professors, all news about the departure prior to Monday’s meeting had been relayed by from University administrators via Department Chair Catherine Dulac, allowing no faculty dialogue during the decision-making stages.

Snyder said the time frame for the departure of MCB professors from Fairchild and their move into Northwest, as well as the necessary renovations, remains uncertain.

Other Fairchild MCB professors could not be reached for comment. Guidotti said some of them may move into the Biological Laboratories due to space constraints in Northwest.

Jeff DeGregorio, who is managing the project at Payette, said he had been asked by Harvard to decline comment regarding the renovations.

—Staff Writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff Writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu.