ramonmercado
CyberPunk
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What could possibly go wrong?
Virologist Robert Cross’s lab is equipped to handle some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. At the Galveston National Laboratory he has worked with guinea pigs infected with Ebola virus and macaques carrying Lassa fever. What it can’t accommodate are pigs, which are common carriers of the deadly Nipah virus. “We’re not really geared to handle large animals,” says Cross, who wears a pressurized biosafety suit for his studies. “You can’t just pick them up when you’re wearing these space suits.”
That’s one reason why Cross is welcoming tomorrow’s ceremonial opening of a massive new high-security laboratory in Kansas, the first in the United States designed with pens and equipment such as cranes to move big animals tainted with the most hazardous infectious agents, including Nipah virus. Although active research won’t begin at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan for several years, Cross predicts that “a high containment resource to deal with agriculturally important pathogens … is going to change the [research] landscape.”
The laboratory, which will be operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has taken nearly a decade longer to complete than planned and, at $1.25 billion, cost nearly three times as much as first predicted. It is also controversial. Although many researchers and powerful Kansas politicians have supported the project, some scientists, Manhattan residents, and farm groups have voiced concerns about handling pathogens dangerous to livestock and humans in the nation’s agricultural heartland. If a highly contagious animal disease escaped the lab, “it would just shut down commerce,” says Larry Kendig, a board member of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association.
NBAF is intended to be the new home for work done for more than 60 years at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a federal laboratory on a tiny island in Long Island Sound, like an Alcatraz for diseases. Two decades ago Plum Island’s aging facilities and lack of the tightest biosecurity features prompted federal officials to start to plan an upgrade.
When New York state politicians opposed handling even more dangerous viruses on the island, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the lab’s overseer, looked elsewhere. It chose Manhattan, a town of 55,000 residents that is also home to Kansas State University. The agency cited broad community acceptance and the fact that Kansas was an emerging research hub for animal disease. ...
https://www.science.org/content/art...rk-deadly-animal-pathogen-middle-farm-country
New U.S. lab will work with deadly animal pathogens—in the middle of farm country
Unease greets opening of high security research facility in Kansas
- 23 MAY 2023 5:15 PM BY WARREN CORNWALL
Virologist Robert Cross’s lab is equipped to handle some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. At the Galveston National Laboratory he has worked with guinea pigs infected with Ebola virus and macaques carrying Lassa fever. What it can’t accommodate are pigs, which are common carriers of the deadly Nipah virus. “We’re not really geared to handle large animals,” says Cross, who wears a pressurized biosafety suit for his studies. “You can’t just pick them up when you’re wearing these space suits.”
That’s one reason why Cross is welcoming tomorrow’s ceremonial opening of a massive new high-security laboratory in Kansas, the first in the United States designed with pens and equipment such as cranes to move big animals tainted with the most hazardous infectious agents, including Nipah virus. Although active research won’t begin at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan for several years, Cross predicts that “a high containment resource to deal with agriculturally important pathogens … is going to change the [research] landscape.”
The laboratory, which will be operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has taken nearly a decade longer to complete than planned and, at $1.25 billion, cost nearly three times as much as first predicted. It is also controversial. Although many researchers and powerful Kansas politicians have supported the project, some scientists, Manhattan residents, and farm groups have voiced concerns about handling pathogens dangerous to livestock and humans in the nation’s agricultural heartland. If a highly contagious animal disease escaped the lab, “it would just shut down commerce,” says Larry Kendig, a board member of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association.
NBAF is intended to be the new home for work done for more than 60 years at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a federal laboratory on a tiny island in Long Island Sound, like an Alcatraz for diseases. Two decades ago Plum Island’s aging facilities and lack of the tightest biosecurity features prompted federal officials to start to plan an upgrade.
When New York state politicians opposed handling even more dangerous viruses on the island, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the lab’s overseer, looked elsewhere. It chose Manhattan, a town of 55,000 residents that is also home to Kansas State University. The agency cited broad community acceptance and the fact that Kansas was an emerging research hub for animal disease. ...
https://www.science.org/content/art...rk-deadly-animal-pathogen-middle-farm-country