Michigan State Breaks Ground on FRIB Research Facility

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow today delivered remarks at Michigan State University's groundbreaking ceremony for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). The new state-of-the-art facility, awarded by the Department of Energy in 2008, will cement MSU's role as a world-class leader in cutting-edge research and continue to make Michigan a global hub for scientific breakthroughs in medicine, homeland security, energy, and other critical industry applications. FRIB is expected to create thousands of new Michigan jobs and generate an estimated $1 billion in economic activity.

"Today's FRIB groundbreaking is an historic milestone for MSU and our entire state," said Sen. Stabenow. "FRIB will create thousands of new jobs and reinforce MSU's and Michigan's role as a global leader in cutting-edge research that will lead to important discoveries in medicine and other scientific fields. I am very excited that this world-class research facility is now one step closer to completion."

Senator Stabenow has been a strong advocate for FRIB, leading the effort to secure $128 million in federal funding to support construction. The President's 2015 budget also includes $90 million to continue construction of FRIB next year.

Michigan State's FRIB project will pursue scientific breakthroughs by creating and studying elements that do not normally occur naturally on Earth. The facility will use the latest scientific equipment to create isotopes - variants of natural chemical elements with minutely different atomic structures than their more common chemical siblings. Studying these extraordinarily rare materials, which often exist for only a fraction of a second, can help advance scientific research in many fields, including using isotopes to improve medical imaging and the treatment of cancer. For more information on FRIB, click here.