BU’s Leading Home for Infectious Diseases Research to Get Major Upgrade with NIH Grant
Original article from The Brink by Andrew Thurston, October 29, 2024.
The worst of the coronavirus pandemic might be (mostly, hopefully) behind us, but other pathogens continue to wreak havoc around the world—and some are even on our own doorstep. In Rwanda, health authorities are scrambling to halt a deadly Marburg outbreak. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) has infected thousands. And in New England, multiple towns recently urged residents to stay indoors after dusk to curb the potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease eastern equine encephalitis (EEE).
At Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), researchers are searching for ways to fight back against pernicious pathogens and diseases. One of just two National Biocontainment Laboratories in the United States, it’s just been given a $7.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to modernize its facilities and help broaden its impact.
Completed in 2009 in BioSquare, an innovation and business park in Boston’s South End, the lab allows researchers to study pathogens, like Marburg, Ebola, Zika, and SARS-CoV-2, in a highly secure and protected environment. According to the NEIDL’s director, Nancy J. Sullivan, the new research facilities construction grant, or C06, will enable BU to make important upgrades to the building, enhancing its safety equipment and allowing it to host more studies. The funding will support the modernization of decontamination, isolation, and pressure control systems, new air locks, and renovation of insectary containment spaces.