BU Infectious Disease Lab gets Clearance to Work with Ebola, Marburg Viruses
Original article from Boston Business Journal by December 7th, 2017
Boston University researchers will now be allowed to work with pathogens as viral as Ebola, following the upgrade of one of its labs being upgraded to a Biosafety Level 4 facility by the Boston Public Health Commission.
The upgrade to Level 4 for Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories is years in the making, the university said, and comes after scrutiny by state, city and federal officials, including approval in December from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The approval makes the lab the 10th Biosafety Level 4 lab in the country, and only one of two sited on a university campus. The lab, located on BU’s Medical Campus on Albany Street in the South End, will now be able to work with pathogens such as Ebola and Marburg viruses.
“As we have seen over the past several years, we are all vulnerable to potentially devastating infectious diseases that may have originated halfway across the globe,” said Gloria Waters, BU vice president and associate provost for research, according to a report on BU Today. “With the opening of the NEIDL’s BSL-4 lab, BU is poised to establish itself as a national leader in fighting microbial systems and infectious diseases. The work that will be carried out here will bring benefit and relief in the form of vaccines, treatments, and cures to people in Boston, the United States, and around the world.