University of North Carolina Wilmington marine biotech leaders got an exciting call during Rep. Mike McIntyre’s alternative energy summit at the university on Monday – news about a $15 million matching grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to build a new laboratory.

Daniel Baden, director of UNCW’s Center for Marine Science, was sitting on a panel during the summit when his mobile phone buzzed. “I got the call about the funding during the meeting,” he said. He didn’t get the news until he went outside after the conclusion of the summit and called his office.

“It puts this region of North Carolina in a different league for marine biotechnology,” he said of the state-of-the-art new laboratory building.

The two-story, 69,000-square-foot building will be built on Masonboro Loop Road adjacent to the new marine operations building finished last year. The projected cost is about $30 million. Baden said the new facility will have room for about 150 new scientists and other workers. He said the immediate economic impact of the project includes almost 35 engineers and more than 275 contractors once work on the building begins.

The new facility will house MARBIONC, a program that focuses on the application of marine biotechnology for health, food and energy, according to a press release. Research areas include drug discovery, detection technologies for human-origin marine pollutants and biotoxins from microorganisms, and algae farming for biofuels and mariculture.

“From an economic development perspective, we’ve been seeking to consolidate North Carolina’s marine biotechnology under a single roof, and this MARBIONC facility brings us one step closer to that reality,” said Jeffrey Wright in the release. Wright is a principal and director for research at MARBIONC.

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, NIST awarded grants to UNCW and three other universities (Rice University in Houston, Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Miami in Florida) out of a pool of almost 100 applicants. The total of the grants was about $55 million.

Michael Baum with the NIST’s public affairs division said the schools awarded grants this summer were picked largely because their projects were ready to begin quickly.

Baden said the university did all its homework in advance of applying for the grant and finished much of the preliminary work to get the project as “shovel ready” as possible.

University of North Carolina Wilmington will begin construction in November, according to Baden. He said the new building will be ready for occupancy in spring of 2011.

The new building’s labs will be highly adaptable for use by companies that will want to partner with the university, according to Paul Reinmann, assistant director for fixed operations and planning at the Center of Marine Science. “The space is more flexible, so groups can use it in different ways,” he said. The walls and ceilings move and labs will change orientation to suit different needs.

The facility will be built on land UNCW acquired in 2005 specifically for this purpose, according to a press release from the university.

“The specialized equipment, environmental chambers and large, modular multi-functional laboratories will be the leading characteristics that will optimize university and industry interactions, and, at the same time, will expedite the efficient transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace,” said Steve Fontana, Senior Technology Development Director for UNCW and the MARBIONC program, in a press release.

Baden said the capabilities of the new labs will help the region compete for biotech money. “The global biotechnology market is expected to top $226 billion by 2010. This facility will help us aggressively develop the next generation of biotechnology platforms and technologies, all based on marine resources and all employing the same financial models that serve the larger biotechnology sector,” Baden wrote in a release.

Rep. Mike McIntyre was almost back to the airport after his alternative energy summit by the time the news got out about the grant, Baden said.

In a release, the congressman said, “What a great victory for UNCW, for jobs, and for the future of Southeastern North Carolina this new center will be.  This investment will keep our area on the cutting edge of lessening our dependence on foreign oil and building a brighter tomorrow.”