The changes are part of continuing efforts to enhance the city's burgeoning health-sciences campus, which is anchored by Cooper University Hospital and often marked by cranes and construction work.

The improvement authority has helped finance several area projects, including a 1,400-space garage adjacent to Cooper.

"This is the most significant redevelopment effort in Camden's history," said Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr., the county liaison to the improvement authority.

The authority's role in upgrading the genetic-research facility is "a wise investment," said James Kehoe, who yesterday was elected chairman of the improvement authority.

About 21,500 square feet of space on the second and third floors of Coriell's five-story building will be renovated to allow more free-flowing communication among scientists, who had been working in smaller individual labs.

The fourth floor will undergo $50,000 of renovations to accommodate the needs of cell-culture laboratories.

Joseph L. Mintzer, Coriell's executive vice president and chief operating officer, laid out the proposal before receiving the board's unanimous approval.

"When you know you're on the cutting edge of something special, it doesn't take much to motivate people," he said in an interview later. "Science is alive. It's not just old-fashioned work behind test tubes."

Mintzer said renovation work was expected to begin by April and be finished in 18 months. "We're opening up closed spaces to give scientists a huge playground to work in," he said. "We couldn't recruit the best scientists if we didn't have this space."

Coriell has 18 scientists and plans to hire more. It has more than 100 employees in other roles.

The institute last year announced the start of its Delaware Valley Personalized Medicine Project with Cooper University Hospital, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and Virtua Health in Marlton.

The study - involving patients, physicians, scientists, ethicists and information-technology experts - seeks to discover genes that elevate a patient's risk of cancer, heart disease and neurological diseases. It also will try to determine why patients respond differently to treatments.

"We think there will be such synergy," Mintzer said. "The collaboration with Cooper will be enormous."

Coriell is one of several nonprofit groups that the improvement authority expects to provide with low-interest, tax-exempt financing for investments in Camden.

In other action by the CCIA board yesterday, Camden County College won approval for $6 million toward its $83 million Blackwood campus-transformation plan, announced in 2006.

The college plans to modernize more than half of the Gloucester Township main campus. Work will continue for several more years.

The first leg of the project, the renovation of Madison Hall, was completed in December, and the new Madison connector building will open in a few weeks.