From project management and energy and water efficiency to emissions and the indoor environment, the Advanced Technology Research Facility was built with sustainability in mind, exceeding the National Institutes of Health’s building standards and earning three Green Globes from the Green Building Initiative.

On October 10, U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski and Congressman Chris Van Hollen, both from Maryland, toured the Advanced Technology Research Facility, accompanied by NCI Director Harold Varmus, Chief Technology Officer Atsuo Kuki, and other FNL leaders. Mikulski toured several Maryland scientific and biotechnology organizations recently, and the ATRF was on her list of places to visit.

Behind each tall, black computer rack in the data center at the Advanced Technology Research Facility is something both strangely familiar and oddly out of place: It looks like a radiator. The back door of each cabinet is gridded with the coils of the Liebert cooling system, which circulates chilled water to remove heat generated by the high-speed, high-capacity, fault-tolerant equipment.

The physical proximity of the SAIC-Frederick Intellectual Property (IP) Office to the NCI Technology Transfer Center is one of the many benefits of being at the Advanced Technology Research Facility, according to Courtney Silverthorn, Ph.D. Being in one location “has increased the effectiveness of both informal communication and formal meetings. We have already brainstormed solutions for several issues in the hallway during an informal chat,” said Silverthorn, an SAIC-Frederick IP specialist.

The Biopharmaceutical Development Program (BDP) at the Frederick National Laboratory is, for the first time ever, in a single building at the Advanced Technology Research Facility. At Fort Detrick, BDP operations were spread out in about a dozen buildings, resulting in redundancies in maintaining various utilities (air handlers, clean steam, WFI, etc.) for multiple buildings rather than one.