TRENTON — While attention to Gov. Chris Christie's proposal to overhaul the state's higher education system has largely focused on a controversial takeover of Rutgers-Camden by Rowan University, a state lawmaker is now lobbying colleagues for an $80 million research laboratory in Newark.

The ambitious plan is the idea of Joel Bloom, president of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), which until now had been untouched by Christie’s vision to change the landscape of New Jersey’s medical and research centers in the north, south and central parts of the state.

The laboratory would be a collaboration between NJIT and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which under Christie’s plan would lose its medical school and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey to Rutgers.

The notion for the facility, which would be called the Newark Laboratory for Life Sciences Innovation, is six months in the making but has not yet been discussed publicly.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) took up the cause on Monday in an e-mail message whose recipients included Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester); Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex); Newark Mayor Cory Booker; Richard McCormick, the departing president of Rutgers; and Denise Rodgers, the interim president of UMDNJ.

"Rutgers gets the prize jewels of UMDNJ: Robert Wood Johnson and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey," Lesniak wrote. "Rutgers-Camden gets greater autonomy. That’s a WIN/WIN/LOSE. The laboratory will be a catalyst to attract academic research funding, which is important to the financial sustainability of all three universities. That’s a WIN/WIN/WIN."

The 100,000-square-foot building would be financed through $80 million in bonds — part of a $3 billion bond issue lawmakers and the governor are discussing that would supplement financing for the state’s colleges and universities.

The proposed lab would be built in Newark’s University Heights Science Park, said Lesniak, who added, "This would be not only a boost for higher education but a boost for the economy of the state, and certainly the economy of Newark."

Bloom said the lab is intended to attract more federal grants and private capital to scientific research in New Jersey, which fits into the goal of Christie’s plan. He said Newark’s higher education institutions have long cooperated, and noted the report endorsed by Christie called for more collaboration between NJIT, UMDNJ and Rutgers.

"We can probably take this concept, and this can be real in little or no time," Bloom said. "But what does it require? It requires physical space and funding to build the space, equip the space and bring it to life ... We’re pretty serious about it, and we think it’s very doable based on what already exists at other universities."

Spokesmen for Christie and Booker did not respond to requests for comment.

Lesniak, for his part, said the plan gives Booker and Essex County lawmakers reasons to get behind a higher education overhaul.

In January, a task force formed by the governor called for the creation of a New Jersey Health Sciences University in Newark to replace UMDNJ, putting University Hospital under nonprofit management, and folding Rutgers-Camden and its law school into Rowan. Last fall, the panel recommended shifting the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the School of Public Health from UMDNJ to Rutgers in New Brunswick.

"It would appear to me this would get the Essex delegation and the mayor more involved," said Lesniak, who added that UMDNJ "lost" in the governor’s proposal, while NJIT gained nothing.