June 7, 2022

UK's Pirbright Institute looks for team to design new veterinary vaccine centre

The Pirbright Institute in Surrey, England, the United Kingdom, is seeking a design team for a new £3.9 million (US$4.9 million) Veterinary Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (Vet-VMIC).

The multidisciplinary design team, project manager and cost manager selected for the estimated £666,000 (US$832,940) contract will design and deliver a new hub focused on identifying and monitoring new livestock and zoonotic diseases.

The Vet-VMIC project, planned to complete in 2025, is the latest addition to a sprawling 15ha research complex.

"The Vet-VMIC core objectives will be to stimulate the development of new vaccines for animal health and public health, both in the UK and globally," a brief stated.  "The Vet-VMIC will build on and develop expertise in veterinary virology, bacteriology, parasitology, immunology and vaccine development.

"The Vet-VMIC building will predominately be a clean room, GLP containment level 2 (SAPO2/ACDP2/GMO2) building with 1 x laboratory clean room suite designed to GMP level that will have the capability of working with SAPO3/ACDP3/GMO3 classified pathogens.

Founded in 1987, the Pirbright Institute is a research centre which diagnoses and studies viruses carried by animals such as foot-and-mouth disease and swine and avian flu.

The latest project comes five years after NBBJ completed a new £17.5 million (US$21.9 million) National Vaccinology Centre – providing research facility for scientists studying diseases in animals – at the Pirbright Institute site located between Woking and Guildford in Surrey.

Appointed in 2012, NBBJ's brief was for an adaptable building in what is an evolving campus with a changing mix of research programmes.

The accommodation includes both generic and specialist laboratories designed to biosecurity protocols, alongside offices, meeting and social areas.

- Architects' Journal