Agricultural, biological defense lab in right place
In: Animal Health| Federal Research Lab| Food Supply| Kansas| Manhattan| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Scientific Research| Veterinary Medicine
21 Jul 2010Recently, Joerg Ohle, president and general manager with Bayer Health Care LLC, Animal Health Division in Shawnee had a great Op-Ed in the Kansas City Star. He discusses the urgent need for the NBAF and applauds the Federal Government for the painstaking work it did to approve Manhattan as the location.
Here’s the Op-Ed:
“Having lived and worked around the globe — from Europe to South America, Africa to Asia, and now the heartland of North America — I have witnessed firsthand the tremendous growth in international travel and goods distribution over several decades.
“True globalization and the interconnected nature of the world bring tremendous benefits, experiences and advancements. They also bring new challenges such as preventing the spread of diseases. National borders and oceans alone can no longer protect us because diseases do not respect borders.
“This challenge is not being ignored nor can it be. In the area of preventing the spread of diseases that threaten the food supply and agricultural economy, for example, the United States has long played an important role in animal health research and industry. This leadership is continuing and expanding with the creation of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a unique, state-of-the-art science lab that will use world-class research expertise and infrastructure in Kansas to ensure food safety.
“The federal government is to be commended for foresight and vigilance in developing the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility and for the painstaking, three-year process it undertook to determine the most effective place to conduct the compound’s critical research mission. It also should be commended for putting safety at the forefront of the project.
“The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is being designed with the most modern bio-containment technology and safeguards available. As a result it will be a highly secure, cutting-edge facility that allows the best and brightest scientists to achieve remarkable results. Just as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has become an internationally recognized center of excellence in human disease research that protects public health, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas will become a pre-eminent center in animal disease research to protect the food supply and agricultural economy.
“The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will have many partners in this urgent endeavor, not the least of which will be the animal health industry, which will bring effective vaccines and other countermeasures out of the lab and into the marketplace. Situated in the Animal Health Corridor, which accounts for nearly one-third of the global animal health market, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will benefit from this region’s unmatched concentration of expertise and resources.
“It will be in exactly the right place to ensure maximum efficiency and seamless collaboration among researchers, producers, farmers, academia and industry. The ingenuity and spirit that took America to the moon 40 years ago are alive and well, and that same ingenuity and spirit will help meet the global challenge of combating dangerous animal diseases and safeguarding the food supply.”
Joerg Ohle vice chair for animal health and nutrition with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and president and general manager with Bayer Health Care LLC, Animal Health Division in Shawnee. He is one of the founders of the KC Animal Health Corridor economic development initiative.
The NBAF belongs in Kansas
In: Federal Research Lab| KSU| Kansas| Manhattan| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Scientific Research| Veterinary Medicine
13 Jul 2010Here is a great video, produced by K-State, that highlights several of the reasons why Manhattan was chosen as the site for the NBAF.
The NBAF: a modern, scientific agricultural research facility with state-of-the-art safety, security and world-class results
In: Animal Health| Federal Research Lab| Food Supply| Livestock| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Scientific Research| Veterinary Medicine
10 Jul 2010The federal government is taking decisive action to modernize the nation’s animal disease research infrastructure, with the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility set to bring our efforts to protect the food supply and agriculture economy into the 21st century.
This is a very important development for American science — and one that some experts say is long overdue. Most of our federal animal disease research today takes place in an antiquated, isolated, 1950s-era facility without biosafety level (BSL) 4 capability, and the NBAF will offer the most modern research capabilities in the most safe, secure, and effective environment possible.
Biosafety
The NBAF will greatly upgrade our ability to develop vaccines and medical countermeasures for some of the most dangerous and vexing animal diseases threatening agriculture, the food supply, and, in some cases, infectious disease related to public health. Some of this research will be conducted in biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) lab space, which plays an essential role in modern science because it allows research on pathogens that present genuine threats to public health. An outstanding example of a BSL-4 lab is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
HPAC Engineering describes a BSL-4 lab as a “self-contained box wrapped on all sides by its support building.” Some have compared the safety of these labs to “a submarine inside a bank vault” — basically a box within a box at the bottom of the ocean.
Popular Mechanic recently described the new research facility in Ft. Detrick, Md., in this way, “The outer area is the medical research equivalent of a maximum-security prison—Biosafety Level 3. The inner sanctum is supermax, or BSL-4.”
(More information about biosafety is available from the CDC.)
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the NBAF will “enhance our nation’s capacity to assess potential threats to humans and animals alike.” With BSL-4 security, the laboratory will be capable of developing countermeasures for foreign animal diseases, providing advanced test and evaluation capability for threat detection, and supporting the licensure of vaccines and other countermeasures that are developed. Once completed, approximately 10 percent of the net square footage will be BSL-4.
Using modern science to protect the food supply and agriculture economy
The NBAF is a necessity for our country because there is no other facility in the world equipped to answer the questions about diseases that put the livestock and people of the U.S. at risk. There have been no cases of exposure from any of the other BSL-4 labs in the country, and the facility in Manhattan will be built using the best safeguards known to man.
With modern lab technology, construction, and procedures, we will achieve both state-of-the-art safety and state-of-the-art research results at the NBAF. As a leading veterinarian has said, America needs, and the NBAF will be, “nothing less than another crown jewel of American science — in essence, a CDC for animal health.”
NBAF quick fact
In: Federal Research Lab| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Scientific Research
6 Jul 2010Upon completion, the NBAF will be the most advanced agricultural biocontainment facility in the world — uniquely suited to perform innovative research to protect and sustain our agricultural infrastructure and food supply. The NBAF will include Biosafety Level-4 (BL-4) laboratories. These are needed to address our lack of national capability to counter new or emerging agricultural diseases that have serious public health implications, such as Nipah and Hendra viruses.
Manhattan Mercury: Director hopes NBAF can help improve tests
In: Animal Health| Federal Research Lab| Livestock| Manhattan| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Veterinary Medicine
2 Jul 2010Earlier this week the Director of the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, New York, discussed the advantages of having the NBAF in Manhattan.
Here’s the article:
“William “Bill” White, director of the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, New York, said he hopes one of the outcomes from the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State will be to perfect pen-side tests that would allow medical professionals to determine whether farm animals are susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease.
“We want to continue to develop and validate new diagnostic tests that will allow us to maintain a cutting-edge profile,” White said at Monday’s kick-off meeting for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, or CEEZAD, at K-State.
“The meeting included presentations by top experts in zoonotic diseases from around the world, among them White and K-State’s Juergen Richt, Regents Distinguished Professor in K-State’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a Kansas Bioscience Authority Eminent Scholar.
“One of the session’s central themes was a call for international cooperation against emerging disease threats.
“Veterinary scientists need to work together,” asserted Batfukh Zayat, laboratory head at the National Veterinary Research Institute in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. He termed the CEEZAD “a great opportunity to explore” techniques in the fight against zoonotic biosecurity threats. Researchers from Britain, France, South Africa and the United States made scientific presentations during the kickoff session, which was held at the Alumni Center.
“The Department of Homeland Security is replacing the Plum Island facility with NBAF at K-State.
“At the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, White leads a team of nearly 50 employees at the only facility in the United States allowed to work with the foot-and-mouth disease virus. His team diagnoses foreign animal diseases both domestically and internationally. The facility’s collaborations include working with medical officials in the Philippines on the Ebola-Reston virus; the Porcine teschovirus and new disease outbreaks in Haiti; lumpy skin disease in Afghanistan and Pakistan; as well as partnerships with Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Dominican Republic, Congo and Mongolia.”
Agro-defense facility will help protect our nation’s food supply
In: Animal Health| Federal Research Lab| NBAF| National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility| Safety| Veterinary Medicine
28 Jun 2010The following Op-Ed previously ran in the Kansas City Star. In it, Bob Larson, DVM, Ph.D., explains why placing the NBAF in Manhattan is imperative to protect agriculture, and enhance our nation’s protection from diseases that could have crippling effects on animal suffering and death.
“Kansas State University, Manhattan and the state of Kansas have a tremendous opportunity to provide essential protection to the livestock industries that are so important to Kansas and the United States through the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility proposal.
“The facility will provide a state-of-the-art location to do the research necessary to enhance our region’s and the nation’s protection from diseases that could cause tremendous animal suffering and death loss, and extreme financial disruption that would ripple throughout the nation’s economy…
“When the research center on Plum Island was first constructed following World War II to conduct research on important animal diseases that were not present in the U.S., it was placed on an island off the east coast of Long Island in an attempt to decrease the risk of accidental transmission of disease agents from the research facility to animal populations.
“While this precaution was realistic before the development of modern containment technology, the location far from important animal agriculture states caused problems related to the geographic distance between the laboratory and researchers and the industries it was developed to protect.
“Livestock industries and the public are not best served when important foreign animal disease research is carried out on a figurative or literal island; but rather when that research is carried out in an atmosphere of interdisciplinary interaction with veterinary medical researchers and epidemiologists, agricultural economists, animal scientists, animal health companies and livestock producers…
“Having livestock producers, university faculty scientists, animal health companies and agro-defense scientists in geographic proximity will promote improved communication to solve complex issues involved with preventing foreign animal disease outbreaks and will be essential in the event of an actual accidental or intentional introduction of foreign animal diseases to the U.S.
“By combining the strength of Kansas and Midwestern livestock producers, faculty scientists and administration at K-State and the expertise in the Animal Health Corridor with the enhanced capability of the proposed agro-defense facility, livestock producers and citizens will benefit from significantly improved protection from the threat of accidental or intentional introduction of foreign animal disease to U.S. soil.”
NBAF in Kansas
Kansas State University has been selected as the future home of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) — once
again highlighting the state’s deep agricultural heritage, bioscience expertise, research infrastructure, world-class animal
health industry, and strong public support.
The $650 million research facility will provide the country with an urgently needed, state-of-the-art lab to protect the food supply and agriculture economy. Kansas is exceptionally well suited to accelerate the achievement of this mission.
Categories
- Animal Health (75)
- Business (24)
- Construction (33)
- DHS (50)
- Federal Research Lab (89)
- Food Supply (59)
- Janet Napolitano (13)
- Job Growth (24)
- Kansas (48)
- KBA (45)
- KSU (67)
- Livestock (53)
- Manhattan (49)
- National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (91)
- NBAF (112)
- Safety (89)
- Scientific Research (77)
- Uncategorized (15)
- Veterinary Medicine (45)
- No comments
- Bioscience Momentum
- KBA joins USDA’s network for research, development
- Kansas consolidates NBAF in animal health corridor
- Agricultural, biological defense lab in right place
- Kansas consolidates the NBAF in animal health corridor
- The NBAF belongs in Kansas
- The NBAF: a modern, scientific agricultural research facility with state-of-the-art safety, security and world-class results
- NBAF quick fact
- Manhattan Mercury: Director hopes NBAF can help improve tests
- Agro-defense facility will help protect our nation’s food supply