JEFFERSON CITY — A cold snap in January is being blamed for damaging $14 million worth of cutting-edge equipment at the University of Missouri’s new research facility in Columbia.
A university spokesman confirmed Friday that the low temperatures caused a broken water pipe in the $221 million Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Building, which was opened in 2021 after an expedited 28-month construction schedule.
Water from the pipe damaged six of the facility’s high-powered microscopes, which are used to help researchers develop new medicines, technologies and treatments.
Included among the damaged machines is a scanning electron microscope and a dual-beam microscope.
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“It was damage to significant equipment,†university spokesman Christian Basi told the Post-Dispatch.
Workers are still assessing the damage and attempting to determine if the imaging machines will need to be completely replaced or if they can be repaired with new parts.
“The complexity of those machines is very large,†Basi said.
For now, Mizzou officials believe insurance will cover the losses, but Basi said attorneys are reviewing whether legal action may be appropriate.
“We’re continuing to investigate that area. We are also asking that question as well,†Basi said.
The 265,000-square-foot, four-story building, which includes offices and laboratory spaces, was designed by Kansas City-based Burns & McDonnell. The construction manager was Whiting-Turner of Maryland.
Significant financing for the construction of the building and its equipment came from federal pandemic emergency funds. The state also pumped in money to help jump-start construction.
During testimony to Missouri lawmakers in 2020, University of Missouri President Mun Choi said the facility would be a center for finding treatments for cancer and heart disease.
Choi said the project has also attracted grants to pay for work on improving skin cancer treatments and building new biomedical devices.
When completed, the university called the NextGen building “the single largest research investment on campus.â€
“The goal is to bring crucial lab research into new life-changing interventions, medicines, technologies and treatments that are designed to improve an individual’s health based on conditions arising from unique genes, environment and lifestyle,†the university said.
During the January cold snap, temperatures in Columbia plummeted to below zero levels and held for several days, causing water pipes to break in other buildings as well. Windchill levels reached minus 20.
In the aftermath, the damage to the building was fixed “rather quickly,†but the machines affected were deemed unusable.
“The research using those machines is certainly impacted,†Basi said.
Other equipment is still functioning, including a 25-ton magnetic resonance imaging machine that produces high resolution pictures used for research. A similar, but less powerful MRI machine also was not damaged.
Basi said it could take several months to determine what will happen with the damaged equipment.