Safety at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories

All systems within the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) will be built with engineered and human redundancies in place to assure safe operations at all levels.

The building will use double High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters and contain redundant systems within the utility, power and mechanical infrastructure. Biosafety laboratories that include biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) facilities are one of the most safely designed and constructed types of buildings in the world. It is for this reason that over a combined 80 years of operation, there has never been an environmental release from a BSL-4 facility in North America.

State-of-the-art systems built into the design of the NEIDL help protect workers and members of the community. The BSL-4 laboratory will comprise 15% of the space within the NEIDL and operate as a self-contained unit. Use of cutting-edge technologies coupled with state-of-the-art security and audit systems and highly trained employees will form the building blocks for the NEIDL at Boston University Medical Center.

Proper oversight and monitoring are central to the laboratory’s operations and mission. The Institutional Biosafety Committee, the Executive Committee, external scientific advisory committees, and the Community Liaison Committee are a few of the committees that ensure safety and transparency of laboratory operations.