Inside a Biosafety Level 4 Lab

As someone with a background in intelligence, I’m accustomed to helping people understand the gravest national security threats our nation faces. But I’ll admit to being as confused as anyone during the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus, which instantly crippled the American psyche – sowing fear and panic in a matter of hours, just like acts of terrorism possess the capacity to do.

So I was both excited – and admittedly a little apprehensive – when TechKnow asked me to visit Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (the NEIDL) – where Ebola and other deadly pathogens will soon be quarantined for study and research.  While the NEIDL had yet to “go hot” – that is, become host to these lethal diseases – during the time of our visit, it will be fully operational this year as a Biosafety Level 4 (or BSL-4) lab. BSL-4 labs, of which there are only a handful in the country, are the medical research equivalent of Supermax prisons.

So it was no surprise to find security at the NEIDL tight; I can’t go into details about the layers of security and protocol at the facility, but suffice it to say, the place was more locked down than CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.