[g-slider gid="36560" width="100%" height="55%"]Austin Community College will become the first community college in Texas to host an industry-approved, state-of-the-art biotechnology lab, the school announced Feb. 6. ACC received $4.9 million from the state's Emerging Technology Fund to develop an 8,400 biotech lab—also called a wet lab—at the Highland Campus, which opened last fall at the former Highland Mall. The new space allows the college to partner with private companies seeking existing research space, ACC President Richard Rhodes said. "The facility will provide unique learning opportunities for ACC students," Rhodes said. "It'll also serve as a resource for the region's growing biomedical industry and ensure a highly trained workforce." Rhodes credited state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, for helping ensure ACC received state support. During the Feb. 6 announcement Watson reiterated a 2011 goal to add more wet labs to the area, estimating at the time that Austin needed about 60,000 square feet of additional research space. The creation of ACC's wet-lab space, coupled with 2012 voter approval of Proposition 1, which helped ensure the creation of the Dell Medical School on The University of Texas campus, helps get Austin closer to meeting that goal, he said. "This is a fantastic moment," Watson said. "This place that we call home has really made an extraordinary commitment to innovation the past few years." ACC does not yet know when the new wet lab will open, said Linnea Fletcher, chairwoman of ACC's biotech department. Once open, two 1,000-square-foot spaces within the wet lab will be available to private companies. "We need to do this because a lot of start-up companies need this help," Fletcher said. "We are behind, and we need to catch up for these companies." Private start-up companies not only benefit from the industry-standard wet lab spaces but also from access to ACC's high-tech equipment, ACC biotech instructor Sulatha Dwarakanath said. Dwarakanath had some of ACC's biotech students demonstrate how some of that technology is already being utilized. "Providing companies these common instruments I think helps put them over the edge," Dwarakanath said. The lack of wet-lab space previously forced many companies that developed technologies in Austin to travel elsewhere to manufacture their product, Fletcher said. Making such space available to Austin-based companies helped convince the state to provide support, she said. "There is a long list of companies that want in this space," Fletcher said. But the wet-lab space also helps students in ACC's biotech program, adjunct instructor Poornima Rao said. By partnering with existing industry companies, students also gain access to the most up-to-date technology and practices in their field, she said. "That's the idea behind opening up this incubator space," Rao said. "With that partnership, we help students gain more exposure to companies ... and our industry partners open up their work to us so we can incorporate it into our curriculum." In exchange, she said companies gain access to otherwise expensive space, equipment and chemicals. Through the grant ACC is working with multiple partners, including the the city of Georgetown, UT's Austin Technology Incubator and the Texas Life-Sciences Collaboration Center, or TLCC, which will also build a wet-lab and teaching space in Georgetown. "This award recognizes our growing collaboration with the ACC to ensure that we have the training resources to meet the growing work force demands of the life science industry," TLCC Executive Director Michael Douglas said in a statement.