In accordance with its plans to construct a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL) on its Grafton campus, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM) has applied for a $20 million grant from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States Public Health Service.
NIAID requested applications for the building of five to eight RBLs for the purpose of examining possible agents of bioterror. The 30,000 sq. ft. lab would be classified as Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3), which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) classifies as "low community risk."
There is no need for concern on the part of Grafton residents, according to Associate Dean of Administration and Finance for the Veterinary School Joseph McManus. At a Grafton Selectman's meeting, he announced that the risk to residents would be "negligible."
"There are multiple layers of identity and access control for the building," McManus wrote in a flyer distributed to attendees of a Jan. 12 campus forum.
"This RBL will be a purpose-built, standalone building designed specifically for worker and community safety. Access to the building will be strictly controlled," he wrote.
BSL-3 labs are already located on the Tufts campus at the Medical School and at the Veterinary School in Building 20. A controversial bioterror lab to be built at Boston University will be classified as BSL-4. Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) labs are defined as having the greatest community risk.
NIAID has made the study of zoonotic bioterror agents, or those that are transmissible from animals to humans, a priority, having already granted money to veterinary schools in Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, and Georgia to study
"It makes sense for such labs to be at veterinary schools because most of the agents that will be studied are zoonotic," said Barbara Donato, assistant director of Public Relations at the Vet School.
A Jan. 7 Chronicle of Higher Education reports that vet schools across the country are currently researching diseases from anthrax to tularemia, the animal disease that recently infected some researchers at a Boston University lab.
The Tufts Vet School has already been at the forefront of bioterrorism research. It received a $25 million contract from the NIH to establish a Microbiology Research Unit that would study food and waterborne diseases.
Director of Tufts' Division of Infectious Disease Saul Tzipori recently conducted research at the Vet School on Cryptosporidium hominis, a water-borne parasite which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has classified as a potential bioterrorist agent. His work was published in the Oct. 28 issue of Nature.
The RBL would be built on 30,000 sq. ft. of the 702,000 sq. ft. available in Grafton Science Park. Science Park is University-owned and is as yet undeveloped. It is within an Economic Target Area -- a zone intended to draw businesses which would foster job creation and economic growth within the host community.
Even though the RBL would not be taxable, "it will be an important catalyst and magnet to bring private taxpaying companies to Grafton Science Park," McManus wrote.
Any project at Science Park would have to be approved by the Grafton Planning Board. A representative of the Planning Board was unable to comment as the town is searching for a new full-time planner after the departure of the former planner, according to a receptionist at the town office.
