Emory University officials are scheduled to break ground Friday on a new building for the Rollins School of Public Health.

The Claudia Nance Rollins Building will provide the school with additional space to accelerate teaching and collaborative research in key areas, including global health, predictive health, infectious disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

When the building opens in 2010, the Rollins school will more than double its size.

The O. Wayne Rollins Foundation and Grace Crum Rollins committed $50 million for the building.

"This new building enhances the School of Public Health's ability to continue its extraordinary progress toward transforming health and healing for Atlanta, for Georgia and for the world," says Fred Sanfilippo, MD, PhD, Emory University executive vice president for Health Affairs and CEO of Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center.