The UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) is celebrating completion of the new Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery (MSABD) building on November 6. The event will be entirely virtual and can be found at https://msabd.cals.wisc.edu/. There will be a recorded video program posted to the event website at 12:00 p.m. that day. The program will include presentations by:

  • Tony Evers, Wisconsin Governor
  • Randy Romanski, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Secretary-designee
  • Howard Marklein, Senator (District 17) and Chair of the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Agriculture, Revenue and Financial Institutions
  • Rebecca Blank, UW–Madison Chancellor
  • Kate VandenBosch, CALS Dean
  • Steven Ricke, MSABD Program Director

The Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery program is part of the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences. The building will serve as a home for the program to develop meat industry leaders, discover new uses for animal components in enhancing animal and human health, provide expertise for education in foods derived from animals, and improve the safety and nutritional quality of animal-based proteins delivered to consumers in the U.S. and globally.

The new MSABD building will provide state-of-the-art teaching, research and outreach capabilities with unparalleled sanitary design, animal handling, harvest, processing, and microbial investigation capabilities. The building features modern offices and conference rooms and houses Bucky’s Varsity Meats retail store (formerly Bucky’s Butchery).

MSABD faculty are currently setting up their labs and starting research activities in the new facility, and UW–Madison classes are currently being held in the building.

The overall cost of the building project was $57.1M with slightly less than half coming from the state and the remainder from gifts and program revenue. A total of 256 donors — both companies and individuals primarily from the state’s meat industry — contributed to the project.

The building’s main atrium area is named in honor of the late Professor Mark Cook, who propelled the animal biologics component of the MSABD program. Cook, who passed away in 2017, was a respected educator, researcher and entrepreneur with more than 40 patents and three startup companies. As a pioneer in the field of animal biologics, his research yielded advances in human health and food production.

Source: UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences