With WashU Medicine’s strategic goal in mind of increasing recruitment to achieve #2 ranking in NIH funding, the Planning, Projects, and Program Management Office (PPPMO) of the Operations & Facilities Management Department (OFMD) initiated a pilot project in 2018 to review peer benchmarks, revisit wet lab space guidelines used for recent campus research buildings, and recommend new wet lab space guidelines going forward.
This pilot grew into creating a wet lab utilization program to study each department on the WashU Medicine campus annually.

Wet Lab Utilization Study Focus
- Identify current and projected team sizes for each lab
- Identify building and space types occupied by each lab
- Identify opportunities for contraction or expansion by analyzing against the WashU Medicine Wet Lab Space Guidelines
- Use results to inform campus master space plan
- Use results to inform highest and best use of space
- Identify any need for vacated space planning
- Included in each department’s 5-year rolling space needs, reviewed annually
Contact Information
WashU Medicine departments have been assigned an individual planner to complete the Wet Lab Utilization Studies. For departments with questions, please contact your assigned planner.
For general information about wet lab utilization studies, contact Mariah Harris, Director of Space Programming, at mariahharris@wustl.edu.