A federal funding bill passed in January awards more than $11.5 million to various University of Missouri System projects.
The Columbia campus is set to receive the bulk of the funding, most of which will be spent on making cancer treatments with the school’s nuclear reactor technology. Another $2 million will go to the Missouri Water Center. One million bucks will go to the University of Missouri-St. Louis for pharmaceutical manufacturing research. Congressmen Mark Alford (R-4th), Bob Onder (R-3rd), Sam Graves (R-6th) and Wesley Bell (D-2nd) are listed as the House members in charge of securing the funding.
The money for the reactors comes amid plans to build a 2nd-generation research reactor, which is expected to cost more than $1 billion. Alford said even though the funding only makes a small dent in raising the money necessary to build the new facility, he thinks it helps keep the project alive.
“There are different things that go into [construction a reactor], just like building a house, right,” Alford said, “You've got to have the plans. You've got to have the architect. You've got to pour the footing for it. It doesn't just happen overnight.”
Mizzou spokesman Travis Zimpfer thanked the lawmakers in an email and said the school will use the money to produce cancer drugs not made anywhere else.
