St. Louis-area researchers seek biodefense laboratory

ST. LOUIS -- Researchers from three universities have applied to a national agency to build a biodefense lab.

St. Louis University, Washington University and Case Western University in Cleveland could learn by October if their grant application to the National Institutes of Health is accepted.

The schools want to build a facility on the St. Louis University campus, said Robert Webster, associate provost for research at the school's Health Sciences Center.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday the researchers are seeking approval for a biosafety "level three" facility, or one that would be the second-highest class of security for laboratories.

The project, to be called the Midwest Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, would serve scientists affiliated with a proposed bioterrorism center headed by Samuel L. Stanley Jr., a microbiologist at Washington University.

That bioterrorism center, which also includes the University of Missouri at Columbia and the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City, would combine vaccine and drug development programs, training centers and research on combating infections.

St. Louis University already operates three level three labs, Webster said.

Washington University runs nine such labs. One has showers and a device that kills microbes before waste water from the lab is released into the sewer system.

None of the laboratories harbor bacteria, viruses or toxins designated as possible biological terror weapons, university officials said.

One laboratory has applied for a permit to study the bacteria that causes plague.

The proposed facility would be reserved for work on select agents such as anthrax, plague-causing bacteria or monkey pox, a relative of smallpox, Webster said. Smallpox itself requires much higher levels of containment and can be used only in more secure laboratories.