Judge OKs DRI’s lease for part of Engelstad Research Building
The Desert Research Institute received the formal go-ahead to get into medical research for the first time in more than four decades.
After hearing no objections, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mike Nakagawa on Tuesday approved DRI's $1-a-year lease for part of the Engelstad Research Building owned by the Nevada Cancer Institute. The four-year agreement, with options to renew, will provide offices and laboratory space for 18 scientists and assistants who would have had no place to go after the cancer institute sold off or shut down operations as part of its Chapter 11 filing.
In addition, DRI will take over a 90-day agreement to use the vivarium, where research animals are kept. DRI will negotiate a longer term deal with the University of California San Diego Health System to use the space, which is in the basement of the building UCSD bought from the cancer institute.
The arrangement was quickly put together in January, when it became clear that UCSD did not want to continue cancer institute research functions.
DRI, a unit of the Nevada System of Higher Education, has long made its mark in the environmental sciences, such as water use in the desert. Its master plan had called for moving into health areas, particularly exploring environmental effects.
