A new multi-million dollar research facility designed to contain experimental plants will open on campus Wednesday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the greenhouse, an addition to the Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory, will be attended by ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, Provost Benjamin Allen and Director of the Plant Sciences Institute Stephen Howell.

“The significant thing about this greenhouse is it allows us to grow transgenic plants in a semi-contained environment,” said Patrick Schnable, professor of agronomy.

Transgenic plants are used by researchers to help find genes in one plant that could be beneficial if transferred into another plant.

Howell, director of genetics, development and cell biology, said he agreed with Schnable, and said the significance and difference in a biosafe greenhouse from a standard greenhouse is the “high containment aspect of it.”

The biosafe greenhouse will have filters to prevent pollen from getting outside, shadow-proof glass and special containers to hold run-off water, Howell said. The greenhouse will also have sophisticated lighting, cooling and environmental control systems.

Howell said the experimental plants that will be located in the greenhouse are genetically engineered, and are not ready to be released into the environment yet, hence their containment in a biosafe greenhouse.

The $2 million greenhouse will be 4,200 square feet, divided into two stories, and was paid for with state dollars.

The Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory is currently filled with undergraduate and graduate students performing research primarily within plant biology. Not all students working in the lab are plant biology majors, however.

“A biology student is working right next to a computer engineering student working together to get their ideas across,” Schnable said.

Howell said a hands-on learning experience for students in the biosafe greenhouse is an “important part of research we do, which is quite often involved with experimental plants.”

Bryce Anderson, garden center manager of Holub Garden and Greenhouses, 22085 580th Ave., said he thinks the research done in the biosafe greenhouse will be important for the university and could ultimately benefit the plants that he sells.

Holub Garden and Greenhouses has several greenhouses located in its store, but none of them keep plants highly contained like a biosafe greenhouse, which are primarily used for research purposes.

The greenhouses located in the store are connected and open for the general public for retail of flowers and foliage plants. They are open to the outside because people constantly come in and out. This is a major difference between standard greenhouses and biosafe greenhouses.

“Methods of controlling insects and diseases in a biosafe greenhouse restrict the entry way, special suits or smocks need to be worn and chemical foot washes are used,” Anderson said.