Imaging researcher appointed to NEIDL
Kate Vander Wiede (From South End News), August 25, 2010
Earlier this month, Ronald Killinay, PhD, was appointed director of the Multimodal Whole Animal Imaging Core at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University.
The director for the Center for Biomedical Imaging, Killiany also acts as an associate professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the BU School of Medicine and an associate professor in Environmental Health at the School of Public Health.
Killiany’s appointment to a position at the NEIDL comes at a time when the entire project is under the microscope by the National Institute of Health. Since March 2008, a first-of-its-kind Blue Ribbon Panel has been working to ensure that an appropriate risk assessment, that adequately and scientifically describe the risks associated with the NEIDL, is completed. Initially set to finish the new risk assessment by April 2009, the completion date has since been pushed back to December 2010.
The NEIDL was created in order to study various pathogens, including what are known as Level 4 pathogens – some of the most dangerous pathogens known to humankind. During state and federal trials, which were prompted by lawsuits against BUSM, the Trustees of BU and NIH, two risk assessments on the lab’s operations were deemed inadequate and not based on good science. The project has been stalled since.
Nevertheless, appointments like Killiany’s have continued.
Principal investigator for the NEIDL, Mark Klempner, said in a recent phone interview that the appointment did not come too soon.
“We’re obligated to put in place the research programs to be able to look at infectious diseases here at whatever biosafety level,” Klempner said. “And this is going to be a unique facility to be able to do that for infectious diseases at all safety levels.”
Klempner explained that Killliany’s background was in imaging brain diseases – studying what images show is happening in the brain versus what is actually happening in the brain. Klempner said this research, which is focused on brain diseases, would be adapted for the NEIDL.
“We need someone to do exactly that kind of thing to be able to understand what things look like from an imaging standpoint…different ways of visualizing the pathology of infectious diseases instead of the pathology of brain diseases,” Klempner said.
But Roxbury resident and head of the Roxbury Safety Net & STOP the BU Bio-Terror Lab Coalition Klare Allen said that the hiring was just another example of BU’s presumptuousness.
“We have a building that has been sitting there for eight years or nine years and they just go ahead as if everything is okay,” Allen said in a phone interview. “I don’t think they are in a position to presume.”
Allen was one of the initial residents to file a lawsuit, and has stayed involved in her opposition to the lab, even offering an alternative plan to members Boston City Council in July.
“We met with Mike Ross and Chuck Turner as a pre-meeting…and presented our alternative plans,” Allen explained,.
That alternative plan, initially presented in late July at the Haley House in Roxbury, centers on the idea of researching “prevalent natural disease” and “adopting new, safe vaccine and antimicrobial technologies.” Documents created by Safety Net list several pathogens BU could focus on (Streptococcus pneumoniae and Chlamydia trachomatis are named) as well as viruses “responsible for respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases.” They call on BU to use newer vaccine technologies that have an emphasis on “oral antiviral and antibacterial drugs.”
“[Ross] said that after he spoke with BU and [Congressman Mike] Capuano they would come back and give us some feedback,” Allen said, “and we would have a larger city council hearing about whether they would accept our alternative plan.”
In the meantime, the NEIDL facility is being used as an administration and training building. Using mock materials, employees are training for what one day may be the real thing.
“There are no infectious agents or animals in the building,” Klempner assured the South End News.
As they wait for the results of the Blue Ribbon Panel, Klempner said that Killiany will start his preliminary work in the NEIDL, also without real materials.
“He will continue to have a role in developing imagine expertise for infectious disease models and the risk assessment will assess at what biosafety levels we can operate at,” Klempner said. “But across the board I don’t think anyone is objecting to the fact that we need to have imaging methods to track and understand infectious diseases.”