Global Health Research at Regional Biocontainment Laboratory
In 2007, Colorado State University opened a $30 million laboratory at the Judson M. Harper Research Complex on our Foothills Campus. The laboratory, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.
The new research facility adds to an existing federal and university infectious disease effort centered on the Colorado State campus including research already underway at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's infectious disease program and the university's existing Bioenvironmental Hazards Research Building and theArthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory.
The facility will house research into finding cures, tests and preventative measures for infectious diseases including West Nile virus, drug resistant tuberculosis, yellow fever, dengue and hantavirus.
Colorado State was selected to receive the grant to build the Regional Biocontainment Laboratory in large part because of the university's long history and proven track record of safe and innovative research in infectious diseases.
This 33,850-square-foot laboratory provides advanced research capacity and facilities to bring university researchers together with government, academia and industry scientists whose expertise to develop new vaccines, therapies and diagnostics for these pathogens to help people across the globe.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent use of anthrax as a terrorist weapon, NIAID has dramatically increased funding for research in infectious and emerging diseases. Both the research and public-health capacity needed to study, develop and implement prevention and treatment of diseases from natural outbreaks or terrorist attacks are currently limited in scope and funding. Colorado State's Regional Biocontainment Laboratory will help fill these gaps.
