Institutions vie for $450-million laboratory deal

NATIONAL REPORT — Several veterinary programs and other institutions in at least 14 states are jostling to host a new high-security government laboratory intended to research some of the world's most dangerous diseases.

Run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) will replace the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York with a 500,000-square-foot lab to be built on at least 30 acres.

With an estimated price tag of $450 million to $500 million and a completion date of 2010, project watchdogs appear certain the facility will trigger a huge economic boost. Calculations by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government show the laboratory's 20-year economic impact at $1.5 billion in payroll, bringing roughly $3.5 billion overall to the table.

Such financial promise and prestige has veterinary institutions vying for a hand in the new lab's operations, which are slated to add at least 200 science-based jobs. An additional 200 positions are expected for support staff with total employee estimates topping 1,000. Bidders range in size from consortiums of private and public universities to county governments seeking the project's opportunities for economic gains.

Dean Richard Adams, DVM, wants Texas A&M University's veterinary program to benefit from the laboratory's educational and economic impact. NBAF plans mandate that the laboratory will observe the nation's highest level of security, including the ability to research foreign animal diseases, emerging public health threats and pathogens spread by animals, DHS documents say.

"I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this is important to our nation and to the world," Adams says. "I think that's reflected in the almost half-billion investment that the government plans to make. It provides a facility and other resources to investigate highly infectious diseases as well as the capabilities to determine how a disease spreads and to produce vaccines."

Veterinary angle

Veterinarians are "unequivocally the best investigators to evaluate diseases that interface between humans, livestock and wild animals," Adams adds. With that in mind, Texas A&M in a consortium with other medical institutions issued DHS a 20-page expression of interest (EOI) packet to build the site on land west of the veterinary medical complex.

"It's a team effort we're offering the federal government, which also provides an interdisciplinary approach," he says. "This facility will not be given to the university.

It will remain a federal facility, but it will obviously depend on the intellectual environment to run it."

Stiff competition

The government, armed a $20-million allocation to screen proposals, plans to whittle its list later this year. In the meantime, the scramble for NBAF continues unabated. Veterinary leaders from University of Georgia, University of Tennessee (UT), University of Missouri and Kansas State University (KSU) are just a few vying for the deal.

Dr. Ralph Richardson, dean of KSU's veterinary college, contends that the program's livestock focus affords the university with the infrastructure to support NBAF. "We have a great awareness of the type of diseases and policies that impact our country and the trans-boundary issues that exist," he says. "We're involved in veterinary medicine food safety."

Dean Michael Blackwell says UT also characterized the veterinary college's capabilities to host NBAF in cooperation with the University of Kentucky, Oak Ridge National Labs and the University of Louisville. The collective entities would manage the laboratory, proposed for Kentucky's rural Pulaski County.

"It's clear the government expects a number of players to be involved, and it's clear those players can be across state lines," Blackwell says. "At this stage, anything is possible."