March 5, 2010 - The new CiRA research building has been completed on the Yoshida campus of Kyoto University. Faculty members will move there by the end of the next month.

The cost to construct the building came to 4.68 billion yen - 4.3 billion yen from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the remaining from the university. It is expected to function as the leading center for iPS cell research in Japan.

About 120 faculty members will work at the building, which has five stories above ground and one below. The 19.9 meter-high building introduces open laboratories to promote interactions among researchers and houses laboratory animal facilities and cell processing facilities to conduct preclinical and clinical studies in the future.