Something unexpected is hiding behind a tightly sealed door on an upper floor of the ultramodern Boston University Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering: an indoor greenhouse. In a building full of bright white hallways, sparkling floors, and sleek glass office doors, the smell of rain and soil that washes over you when the door opens is a delightfully earthy surprise.
Filled with rows of plants in various stages of their life cycle—from seedlings, to blooming, to producing the next generation—the room is a new addition to the lab of Ahmad “Mo” Khalil, a BU College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering. Despite feeling like a garden, it’s become a place for researchers to study nature’s complexity, as they investigate the fundamental genetic makeup of plants and test new genome editing techniques.
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