Re “A need for a new building” (Jan 20.): I did not expect all my colleagues to agree with the opinion I expressed in the News last week — that we could wait a few years for the new Yale Biology Building. Although the chair and some members of the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Executive Committee feel that Kline Biology Tower is outdated and that we need a new building as soon as possible, I stand by my original convictions.

As one of the first occupants of the building, I know it has at times fallen into disrepair, but I feel that its infrastructure is good enough for now. Most of the laboratories in KBT are large, modern, tailored to individual needs and functioning well. I admit that there are still occasional floods, but most are due to secondary installations of lab equipment with faulty connections to the infrastructure plumbing. I also do not think it is impractical to build temporary animal and greenhouse facilities until we have the funds to build permanent ones.

I agree with the members of the committee that it would be nice to have a new building, but I think we can wait for a while and get our work done as well as we always have.

Joel Rosenbaum

Jan. 20

The writer is a professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.