Campus Connection

Media Credit: Preeta Dasgupta Bullet hole seen on a third floor lab window in Biopark I.

The Biopark Building I, which is a part of the UMB campus on the west side of Martin Luther King Boulevard, was attacked by unknown assailants towards the last week of October. A student noticed large hole and cracks in the glass windows (presumably as a result of someone throwing a large stone) on the third floor. A couple of days later "much cleaner holes" followed in an adjacent window. Similar holes were detected in the second floor windows as well. 

The windows are made of two layers of thick glass and only the outer surface was damaged by the attacks. After this incident was reported to the administrators of the building, the Campus Police were called in to investigate this matter. No details as to how the investigation is proceeding are available at present, but the Biopark community has been informed that there will be more checks both in the interior and exterior of the building and increased Police patrols in the area. In the mean time students, faculty and staff have been asked "to be vigilant and to report any further incidents or suspicious activities" as soon as it comes to their notice.

The Biopark buildings (I and II) were built by UMB with industry collaborations. The second and third floors of the Biopark Building I house the Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases. This center includes offices for faculty and staff, who are part of the School of Medicine, together with their labs where sizeable number of students, postdoctoral fellows and technicians work. The Biopark Building II is still under construction, but upon completion it will house members of the Institute for Genomic Sciences.

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