On Dec. 5, 2008, the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was recommending a site in Manhattan, Kan., for the nation’s first Biosafety-Level 4 animal research laboratory. In the aftermath of that decision lawmakers and planners expected the project to move ahead at full speed—after more than two years of dramatic competition among state governments and some of the country’s most prestigious universities.

(HSToday first covered this topic in “Battle of the bio-labs” in the November 2008 edition.)

“This is a national priority,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), told reporters in December when the Manhattan campus of Kansas State University was recommended as the site for the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). The lab, which will allow researchers to conduct tests on the deadliest of animal and zoonotic diseases (diseases that affect animals, as well as those that can be transferred from animals to humans), is expected to cost $450 million. So far, Congress has appropriated $66 million since 2006.

“I have no doubt this will be funded,” said Roberts.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) said state lawmakers will waste no time putting political pressure on Washington for the additional resources. The state legislature already passed a $105 million bond measure in 2008 to help win the bid.

A formal Record of Decision was scheduled for Jan. 12. The intervening period was open to comments and appeals from the five other state consortiums that lost out on the bid.

Plans

The new facility is planned for a parcel of land just less than 45 acres on the Manhattan campus of Kansas State University, immediately adjacent to the Biosecurity Research Institute (BRI),

and bordering the research labs and teaching hospital of the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Following the design process, which would include plans for two main lab facilities and four outbuildings, construction is supposed to begin in 2010, with an expected completion date of sometime in 2015. The construction alone is expected to draw 1,500 workers, and the lab should employ an estimated 500 people, including 300 researchers.

The Heartland Bio Agro Consortium that brought the Kansas bid to DHS includes other university partners within the Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska area. George Stewart, chairman of the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology at the University of Missouri, told HS Today he expects the new lab will benefit all similar research efforts in the region.

“The Kansas City area has the largest concentration of animal health companies in the world,” he pointed out, “so products such as vaccines and therapeutics developed in the course of the research conducted at MU [University of Missouri], KSU, and NBAF can easily be moved forward to produce useful products.”

Unhappiness

Not everyone was as delighted by the selection. Some of the losing consortia leaders expressed interest in fighting the DHS recommendation, feeling that the decision process was either flawed or biased. At press time—just a few days after the Dec. 5 decision—no appeals had been officially initiated.

Not all losers were aggrieved. David Lee, vice president of university research at the University of Georgia at Athens, the site of a rejected bid by the Georgia Consortium for Health and Agro-Security, told HSToday the two-year bid process resulted in many unexpected opportunities.

“It [the bid process] accentuated our strengths in infectious diseases in Georgia and in the University of Georgia. We pulled everybody together to put this forward.“ As a result, better relationships were forged with researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emory University in Atlanta and others in the consortium.

Stewart said the most important consequence of the final decision is that the lab is finally going forward.

“A state of the art facility to protect the country against foreign animal diseases as well as potential agents of bioterrorism and naturally emerging agents is now closer to reality,” he said. “This is exciting.”

—By Kelley Vlahos, HSToday Washington correspondent

Correction: A photo on page 26 of the November edition was incorrectly captioned. The photo is of the NC4 Incident Monitoring Center, not the NIMSAT center at the University of Louisiana.