WHAT: Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will visit the University of Iowa campus Tuesday, May 20, to meet with shared governance leaders and faculty involved in entrepreneurial work, and tour the new John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building (PBDB). The PBDB tour is open to news media and will provide the first public glimpse into the facility, which is scheduled to open in June. While on campus, Branstad also will meet with shared governance leaders and faculty involved in entrepreneurial work.

WHEN: PBDB tour is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. and will be led by Dr. Michael Welsh, professor of internal medicine and director of the PBDB. Media are encouraged to arrive at 10:45 a.m. to set up, as the tour will begin promptly at 11 a.m.

WHERE: 169 Newton Road, on the UI’s Health Science Campus. Metered parking is available in the Newton Road Ramp.

WHY: Scheduled to open in June, the $126 million facility is the third of three buildings that were part of the UI’s master plan to modernize Carver College of Medicine facilities, along with the Medical Education and Research Facility and the Carver Biomedical Research Building.

The building, with six floors of research labs, has 256,000 square feet of space, including 31,000 square feet of shelled space underground that eventually will be used for research support space. The facility will include one and a half floors dedicated to the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center, as well as research into a parallel epidemic, obesity.