Rocky Mountain Biological Lab opens new facility

“This is really just a first big step in a broader campaign”

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory started a new chapter in an old story on Friday, June 26 with the official opening of the doors to the new Gothic Research Center, an almost $2 million state-of-the-art facility to house a new generation of scientific research.

Tucked back against a hillside in Gothic, the new 4,800-square-foot building is the first big step in a $10 million legacy campaign meant to improve the infrastructure in the home of some of the nation’s longest running research. But despite its size and sophistication, the lab doesn’t seem to change the character of an old mining town made into one of the world’s preeminent ecological research areas.
“This is really just a first big step in a broader campaign to improve the infrastructure,” RMBL board president Scott Wissinger told the crowd gathered for the grand opening. “This is really the initial step in what is a $10 million legacy campaign … RMBL in general has moved forward rapidly to get the kind of infrastructure we need to support students, scientists, education and research that RMBL really needs to remain a cutting-edge institution.”
As an institution that has no ties to any one university, RMBL stands alone in its position as a place where scientists of all types come together to hash out ideas and identify the common threads that connect all of their research. But new research techniques in genetics and molecular ecology meant RMBL needed a new clean space for scientists to work.
“Previously we did not have clean or temperature-controlled spaces. Now, scientists can collect plant and soil material and isolate microorganisms like viruses and bacteria,” RMBL director Ian Billick said. “They can measure really small things like individual seeds.”
They can also communicate their data better with the outside world from a new telecommunications suite.
Since the RMBL opened officially in 1928, research done there has helped shape national policy, like the Clean Air Act, and informed the discussion on pollination as it relates to food crops, as well as many other subjects.
Wissinger said, “I’d like paraphrase one of RMBL’s eminent scientists, Paul Ehrlich, and say this: If you like to eat, drink clean water, breathe clean air and want to pass onto your children a legacy of knowledge that can be used to make the world a better place, then you should care about the outcomes of research on how natural ecosystems work.”