1-202 NHH lab closing on Sept 2

August 31, 2022

The UMN Genomics Center will permanently close our 1-202 Nils Hasselmo Hall (NHH) lab on Friday, September 2nd, at 5:00 p.m., and this site will no longer be staffed for processing samples, managing sample drop-off, and hosting self-service instruments. We will complete the move of services and instruments out of NHH to our other on-campus locations (CCRB and Snyder) and our off-campus location (4Front - Oakdale, MN) shortly. 
 
There are two reasons for closing our NHH site. First and foremost, one of our key goals for this year was to segregate our internal (ISO) services from our external (ESO) services, in order to better focus our on-campus services for UMN clients. By consolidating our mostly external microarray services (formerly at UEL) and GBS and microbiome services (NHH) to one off-campus location, along with the shuttering of Sanger and oligo services, we are no longer fully utilizing the NHH space. (Note: CCRB and Snyder locations are not impacted by this ESO consolidation and are business as usual). 
 
Two, as many of you are aware, on-campus space and utilities are costly, and the UMGC is charged full costs on our space. Without normal, full-capacity lab operations in NHH, it no longer makes financial sense to maintain the NHH space solely as a sample drop-off location. By reducing our campus footprint, we will save tens of thousands of dollars in rent, which we will repurpose for other uses, like “kiosks”.
 
Adding sample drop-off kiosks:
We are investigating the establishment of "drop-off kiosks" with -80 °C freezers in one or more convenient locations near NHH to facilitate sample drop-off for that area of campus. Please stay tuned.

Sample drop-off in 1-210 CCRB:
In the meantime, if NHH was your previous sample drop-off site, starting on Tuesday, September 6th, your nearest alternative is at our 1-210 Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building site (2231 6th St SE, Mpls), located near Huntington Bank Stadium. View courier times and building access for CCRB.  

Thank you for your patience as we sunset 1-202 NHH. Please reach out to a service manager if you have questions about sample drop-off logistics. We will communicate drop-off kiosk information as it becomes available and also post this on our UMGC lab locations web page. 
 
Sincerely, 
Kenny Beckman, Ph.D. 
Director, University of Minnesota Genomics Center 
kbeckman@umn.edu
 
Dinesha Walek 
NHH and Snyder Operations Manager
walek001@umn.edu