UD cuts the ribbon on Building X

April 28, 2025

NEWARK — The University of Delaware celebrated the opening of its $184 million interdisciplinary lab last week.

Known as Building X, the 132,000 square foot building has labs on every floor with offices in an open floor plan to help encourage collaboration between faculty and staff. Although the building remains unnamed until a major donor can be secured, UD has embraced the offbeat name – UD President Dennis Assanis said it was to inspire the imagination of what could be.

“We want to leave things to the imagination about the amazing science that’s going to happen in this building for years to come,” Assanis said during a ceremony on April 17. “What this building yields is truly exceptional, transformational research and discovery.”

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The five-story laboratory on Delaware Avenue is home to an interdisciplinary program for UD that brings biological sciences and psychological and brain sciences. The basement and the first floor include vibration-free labs to study atomic-level events while large biology labs on the second floor are designed with rows of benches in the style of modern labs.

There’s also a skybridge that connects to the Center for Biomedical and Brain Imaging next door, complete with cutting-edge scientific instruments. Other labs have high-resolution microscopes that enable students to look at molecules in cells. The third floor has an open space lab for brain and mind behavior studies.

The state-of-the-art lab is a short walk from Newark’s Main Street Galleria and replaces McKinly Lab which was damaged by a 2017 fire. For a long time, UD officials endeavored to redevelop McKinly back into usable facilities and the college sought funding, as well as a focus point for its research.

Then Gov. John Carney approved $41 million in federal stimulus funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support the building of the new facility, or about a quarter of the project’s cost. The rest of the building’s costs came from university resources and fundraising.

“That was a down payment on the future we will forge,” U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) said during the event. She and U.S. Chris Coons and U.S. Sen. Tom Carper helped push the ARPA in Congress.

During his prepared remarks, Assanis painted a picture where UD students would be able to research and possibly make breakthroughs in brain science as well as exploring the implications for understanding the mind and human behavior as well as basic biology needed to treat human diseases. He estimated that more than 1,000 students a year will be taught new technologies and science disciplines as they go on to work in life sciences, health care and more.

“Think what happens when we study together the physical brain and the artificial brain to explore the causes, treatments, prevention of disease and in advance of understanding the treatment of disorders, neuroscience, human beings, Alzheimer’s, everything else that we’re going to cure here in Delaware,” Assanis said.

For Velia Fowler, chair of UD’s biology department overseeing 700 students, Building X also symbolizes a new era of collaboration. She had a hand in the design which includes plenty of open space where students can meet and discuss their work and possibly brainstorm for out-of-the-box solutions.

“The faculty and the departments have been as much as a mile apart, and psychology was in nine different buildings,” Fowler said. “When we talk about people informally talking about their ideas and their research, it’s just not happening when you’re a mile away. Bringing everyone together and on the main campus where you’re collaborating with engineers that may be in that building.”