Biolab’s Security Drive
Boston Herald
October 4, 2007
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston University’s anti-bioterrorism lab won’t have Fort Knox-like protections provided by the U.S. Army.
But the controversial $178 million facility, now only a year away from completion, will have a host of impressive security measures.
They include blast-proof exterior walls, airtight labs encased by at least foot-thick reinforced concrete, “intelligent” video systems that can detect intruders, eye scanners for employees moving about the building, and dozens of state police-trained armed guards patrolling the Albany Street facility, BU officials said yesterday.
Boston University, which is battling critics who say the biolab is too risky to be in the densely populated South End, yesterday gave three Herald staffers one of the first tours of the nearly-completed seven-story building, where Ebola, plague, anthrax and other deadly germs will one day be studied.
The message of the day from BU: security, security, security. For security reasons, officials wouldn’t even allow photographers in the building, which is now about 70 percent complete.
“It’s amazing how many redundancies there are here – and that’s what drives up costs,” said David Flynn, assistant vice president of facilities at BU.
The tour showed that some equipment is already being moved into the federally funded facility, such as high-efficiency air filters designed to prevent escape of non-sterilized particles into the air.
Though none of the labs are completed, the concrete outlines of heavily fortified “high containment” vaults are visible. Each of the individual Level 4 labs will eventually have inch-thick stainless steel doors with self-sealed “bladders” around edges to make them airtight.
Each Level 4 lab is surrounded by reinforced concrete and eventually will have inch-thick glass windows. Wearing pressurized suits, no researcher will be allowed to leave a lab without going through a disinfectant shower, said Dr. Jack Murphy, chief of molecular medicine at BU and co-principal “investigator” for the lab.
Precautions to prevent leakage of germs will be so tight that not even firefighters will be allowed in some rooms during emergencies, Murphy said.
Though BU officials were stressing the facility’s future security features, Shirley Kressel remained unimpressed.
“We don’t have a handle on the safety issues,” said Kressel, a neighborhood activist and critic of the planned lab. “We need more answers.”