The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is celebrating completion of the new Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery (MSABD) Building on Nov. 6. The event will be entirely virtual and can be found at msabd.cals.wisc.edu. A recorded video program will be posted to the event website at noon that day.
The program will include presentations by Gov. Tony Evers; Randy Romanski, Wisconsin ag secretary designee; UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank; CALS Dean Kate VandenBosch; MSABD program director Steven Ricke; and Sen. Howard Marklein, who chairs the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Agriculture Revenue and Financial Institutions.
The new MSABD Building will provide state-of-the-art teaching, research and outreach capabilities with unparalleled sanitary design, animal handling, harvesting, 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).
Total size of the new building is about 67,540 gross square feet. The overall cost of the building project was $57.1million, 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 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.