47 ABC exclusive tour inside DSU OSCAR Building

Delaware State University have a brand new, state of the art, $18 million silver prism shining in the middle of their campus. It’s their Optical Science Center for Applied Research, or OSCAR Building.

Dr. Matt Bobrowsky, a scientist with the Delaware Institute of Science and Technology says, “We’re doing cutting edge research which has commercial potential.”

Optics is a field of physics. It’s the science of light. 

Dr. Bobrowsky says, “All that work makes use of laser and optical phenomena. We can do very high resolution imaging.”  

The building has been in use for about six weeks. Dr. Bobrowsky, took 47 ABC on an exclusive tour.

47 ABC was the first camera crew to go inside the building that operates under three prongs; research, education, and making connections with private industries.

Dr. Amir Khan, an assistant professor and OSCAR scientist says, “One of the unique things about this building here is that we have diverse researchers who work in different fields. We actually bring them all together under one roof.”

The building has a brand new imaging facility, conference rooms, offices, collaborative work stations, and labs like this one.

Right now in the OSCAR building, researchers are working on experiments detecting cancer cells and tracking signs of life on Mars.

Dr. Bobrowsky says, “The optical equipment and the parts in the system have to be aligned very precisely and a little vibration could mess things up.”  

With the Dover Speedway Right across the street, things are bound to shake. However, the entire facility is designed to suppress vibrations.

Dr. Bobrowsky says, “That makes it possible to do research here that would not otherwise be possible.”