VIRGINIA SPOTLIGHT -- Site Selection magazine, November 2006

Research Heaven

The Greater Washington metro area that continues to stretch further into Virginia is frequently noted for two things: its wealth (five of the nation's ten richest counties) and its wealth- starving commute (second- longest average commute in the country). Those statistics hide a wealth of corporate projects, including recent expansions by BAE Systems and Abraxas in Fairfax County. Now the city of Ashburn in the nation's richest county (Loudoun) can also be known for its wealth of pure research, thanks to the opening in September of the Janelia Farm Research Campus, a new scientific community created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
In a state already known for its high- level

The Janelia Farm Research Campus opened in September 2006.

secondary and post- secondary academic quality, this campus raises the bar. HHMI, which sports a $16- billion endowment, calls Janelia Farm "an environment where leading scientists can pursue long- term, high- risk, high- reward research in a campus specially designed to bring together researchers from disparate disciplines." The permanent research staff will number about 250 people and there will be up to 100 visiting scientists. The farm's initial foci will be discovering the basic rules and mechanisms of the brain's information- processing system, and developing biological and computational technologies for creating and interpreting biological images.
HHMI acquired the Janelia Farm property in 2000. In 2004, the Institute purchased Selden Island, an adjacent property, bringing the total size of the campus to 689 acres (279 hectares). Janelia Farm will include about 760,000 sq. ft. (70,604 sq. m.) of space, housing the research laboratories and support areas, a conference facility that includes 96 rooms for short- term visitors, and a housing village for more than 100 long- term visitors.
HHMI, based in Chevy Chase, Md., conducts biomedical research in collaboration with more than 70 U.S. universities, medical centers and other research institutions. It employs 300 investigators and more than 2,000 scientific staff.

– Adam Bruns