Peter Hudson came to Penn State a decade ago from the University of Stirling, in his native Great Britain, to serve as the Verne Willaman Chair of Biology. In 2005 he became director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. The Huck provides a foundation for research collaboration across colleges and departments in the University, offering resources for faculty and students to carry out collaborative research. We sat down to talk with him to learn more about the Huck.

When Penn State’s Millennium Science Complex (MSC) opened its doors to researchers last fall, it inaugurated a new era of scientific discovery at the intersection of materials science, engineering, nanoscience and the life sciences at Penn State.

When Penn State's Millennium Science Complex opened its doors to researchers last fall, it inaugurated a new era of scientific discovery at the intersection of materials science, engineering, nanoscience and the life sciences at Penn State. The 297,000-square-foot research building is the culmination of 10 years of planning and more than three years of construction, making it the largest academic building on campus and one of the most complex construction projects in Penn State history.

When Penn State's Millennium Science Complex opened its doors to researchers this fall, it inaugurated a new era of scientific discovery at the intersection of materials science, engineering, nanoscience and the life sciences at Penn State. The 297,000-square-foot research building is the culmination of 10 years of planning and more than three years of construction, making it the largest academic building on campus and one of the most complex construction projects in the University's history.

The facility is designed to the exacting standards of a world-class laboratory for imaging on the atomic level, and nanofabrication in stringent cleanroom conditions. The northern wing of the building is devoted to materials science, while the west wing of the building houses researchers in the life sciences and neural engineering. The two wings are joined on several levels to facilitate interactions between the two disciplines, and some of the instrumentation for characterization and nanofabrication is shared between the two groups in a common area of the building.