Wates has already carried out some enabling works and will now start construction work proper in July.

The new centre will help the university establish a world-leading presence in systems biology and the newly emerging disciplines of cellular engineering and systems biomedicine.

The Living Systems building is to be constructed on the University’s Streatham Campus and is due to open in March 2016 achiveing a BREEAN Excellent target.

It will be located on North Park Road and will act as a hub, connecting the existing Geoffrey Pope biosciences and Physics buildings.

The completed building will have space for up to 200 scientists and technicians, ranging from postgraduate students to professors.

Professor Nick Talbot, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer said: “The building has been specifically designed to ensure that researchers from very different scientific disciplines work together in a completely new, interdisciplinary way and also demonstrates our confidence in the recent investments in science, engineering and medicine that have been made by the University.”