Research That Matters – NEIDL: Right Place, Right Time
Original article from BU Annual Report, 2022
When news broke that an unknown and dangerous virus had reached US shores and was rapidly spreading, researchers at BU didn’t blink. By mid-March 2020, they were already working with live samples of the novel coronavirus at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL).
“NEIDL was built to be able to study emerging infectious diseases and respond to national emergencies,” says Director Ronald Corley, chair and professor of microbiology at the School of Medicine. “This pandemic has demonstrated the value of having a facility like NEIDL and all the expertise that we’ve brought into it.”
Built in 2008, NEIDL is a state-of-the-art research facility that supports the work of investigators who focus on infectious diseases that are—or have the potential to become—major public health concerns. It is one of only a handful of facilities in the United States that houses biosafety level 2 (BSL-2), BSL-3, and BSL-4 laboratories, which are designed to permit investigators to work safely with these emerging pathogens. NEIDL is owned and operated by Boston University but is also one component of a national network of secure facilities that studies emerging infectious diseases.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, NEIDL scientists dropped nearly every other research project to focus on understanding and combating the novel coronavirus.