Baltimore, Md. – RMF Engineering recently renovated the cryo-electron microscope laboratory for the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS) in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 1,035-square-foot laboratory is the first of its kind in the Carolinas and is solely dedicated to the cryo-electron microscope, which was developed to help scientists better understand the molecular structure of proteins, including those of various cancers. RMF provided design services for the mechanical, electrical, laboratory gas and fire protection systems in the laboratory, and also hired and managed the architects, acoustical and vibration engineers, and structural engineers working on the renovation.
Completed in June 2017, the NIEHS Cryo-EM Core laboratory includes a 600-square-foot microscope room, a 250-square-foot control room and a 185-square-foot mechanical room. The microscope room requires an extremely stable environment, so RMF accounted for temperature, air movement, sound, vibration and electro-magnetic interference when completing the project. Within the existing microscope room, RMF designed an 8-inch wall made up of concrete masonry units with filled voids to help combat exterior noise and to create a thermal mass to fight temperature fluctuations. RMF then conditioned the room load with chilled wall panels around the entire room and connected a dedicated, water-cooled chiller to the building’s existing chilled water loop in order for the chilled panels to maintain a constant temperature. RMF used a blower coil to provide ventilation and control humidity, which includes HEPA 99.9% filters to have clean room level filtration even without clean room level airflows.
“The highly technical nature of this laboratory renovation made it an exciting challenge for our team,” said Duane Pinnix, president and CEO of RMF. “We are honored to have renovated the lab where structural biologists will collect groundbreaking data for years to come.”
RMF’s Raleigh, North Carolina office specializes in providing engineering services for laboratories, institutions of higher education and healthcare facilities. The firm has handled work for the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Johns Hopkins’ Cancer Research Buildings, University of South Carolina’s Biomedical Research Facility, Leidos Biomedical Research’s Laboratory Building and more. For more information on RMF’s services, click here.
