The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a construction grant to Boston University Medical Campus to partly fund the design and construction of one of two National Biocontainment Laboratories. These advanced biomedical research laboratories are essential to the civilian biodefense initiative, providing critically needed Biosafety Levels 2, 3 and 4 research space. The basic and translational research to be conducted in these laboratories over the next 20 years would result in development of new rapid diagnostic assays, vaccines and therapeutics for protection of the American public against intentional misuse or release of harmful biological agents or toxins and naturally emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
Today, NIH published the Draft Supplementary Risk Assessment for the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory under contraction at the BioSquare Research Park, Boston. Comments on the Draft Supplementary Risk Assessment must be postmarked no later then May 1, 2012. A public hearing to solicit public input will be held on April 19, 2012. Copies of the Draft Supplementary Risk Assessment and a companion reader’s guide document is available here: http://nihblueribbonpanel-bumc-neidl.od.nih.gov/default.asp
