Steelworkers placed the last beam in the steel frame for the new Genomics and Biomedical Sciences Facility during a "capping" ceremony last week. With the completion of the skeleton, the six-story structure is now the tallest on campus.

The $95 million building is scheduled to open in summer 2004 in the campus's Health Sciences District. It will house the UC Davis Genome Center, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, a revitalized pharmacology and toxicology department in the School of Medicine and more.

"It's really very exciting," said Craig Benham, interim director for the Genome Center and associate director for bioinformatics. "Genomics is one of the core areas of 21st-century biology. This building will place UC Davis in a leadership position."

The facility is one of three under-construction genomics buildings nationwide featured in a cover article in the April issue of Genome Technology. Meanwhile, fast-track construction of a single-story Genome Launch Facility has begun across Hutchison Drive near Transportation and Parking Services to provide space for Genome Center scientists by next spring. Searches are under way for a director and the first four of 17 new Genome Center faculty members.