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University of Texas Builds Security into Galveston Biological Research Center

Posted on: Friday, 10 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

Oct. 10--A submarine in a bank vault.

That's the description favored by officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston when asked about the security and design of their nearly completed biological research center.

It's an apt characterization.

Behind glass bubbles, security cameras monitor two 1,000-square-foot labs where sensitive work will be done on some of the world's deadliest diseases. Yellow tubes snake down from the ceiling, providing filtered air for scientists working with dangerous biological materials. Researchers and technicians wear white pressure suits akin to the attire of moon-walking astronauts and divers in the deepest seas.

"You kind of look like the Michelin Man," said David Walker, executive director of UTMB's Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Walker led a tour of the highly secure, level-4 research lab Thursday, about a month before the $18.5 million building is scheduled to open for research and, in the parlance of lab officials, "go hot."

Reporters tagged along with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on the tour -- which included a ribbon-cutting -- but for security reasons, cameras were not allowed inside the highly restricted space.

Level-4 research labs, the most tightly controlled of all areas for biological materials, provide space for scientists to work with agents such as the Ebola virus. UTMB's lab, when it opens, will be just the sixth in the United States. There is another such lab in San Antonio at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research.

The tour came about one week after UTMB received $110 million from the U.S. government to build a much bigger level-4 lab, solidifying Galveston's position as a national leader in the study of infectious diseases and potential bioterror agents. The two labs will work in tandem.

The university's president, John Stobo, said UTMB's initial goal was originally more humble: to become a leader in the research of tropical diseases and emerging infections. But its mission expanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks raised the level of terrorist threat to the United States.

"It provided to us a mandate that our work also be directed to bioterrorism research," he said.

The lab is equipped to handle materials such as anthrax and bubonic plague, both of which could be effectively used as terrorist weapons. Scientists need the highly secure space to study the pathogens, identify potential vaccines and treatments, and test those drugs in animals.

Access to the lab is limited, and researchers must pass at least two checkpoints to enter the facility. At the entrance, air pressure is high, so any airborne material is sucked back inside the negatively pressured lab. At each successive level inside the lab, the air pressure is adjusted to create a vacuum to pull material farther inside.

The floors and walls are concrete, sturdy and Spartan. After passing the entryway, researchers reach a buffer zone that extends around the inner labs. Large windows look into the research area from the buffer zone, and rounded doorways give it the submarine feel.

From the buffer zone, scientists enter a locker room to don pressurized white suits, and from there they can access the two main labs through an airlock.

After work, they exit through the same airlock, remaining there for an eight-minute chemical shower to kill any materials on the exterior of their suits. Only then may the scientists step back into the changing room.

After the tour Hutchison, who was born at a hospital on the campus, gave her seal of approval.

"It seems to me that the measures being taken here are extraordinary and are going to protect people inside and out of the lab," she said.

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(c) 2003, Houston Chronicle. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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