AlaskaDenise
In Memoriam
ATHENS - The country's main avian influenza research program is poised for a major renovation, including the possible creation of a new research laboratory that would become one of the largest buildings in the city.
The University of Georgia's Southeastern Poultry Research Laboratory is showing its age, but the federal government is considering a $16 million plan to design a new facility for the lab. The item was included in President Bush's proposed budget for the 2008 fiscal year.
Congress has not yet approved the funds for the plan.
The 552,000-square-foot National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility would help confront threats from emerging disease pandemics or bio- and agro-terrorism.
It would be part of the federal Department of Homeland Security and would include biosafety labs where scientists can research and create diagnostic tools for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases, or those that can be passed between animals to humans.
Homeland Security officials are considering proposals for 18 sites. Finalists will be announced in June and a decision on the final site selection would be made next October. The building would become operational in 2013 or 2014, according to the Department of Homeland Security schedule.
Lab director David Swayne said design and budget costs typically are about 10 percent of the cost to build the project, which means the project could cost about $160 million.
Swayne said the research going on at the 46-year-old facility is vital for national security. The scientists there played a large role over in recent years in helping reconstruct the 1918 flu virus that killed between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide.
Now the lab is home to the country's main research on bird flu, a virus that many fear could kill millions of people again.
The lab was built in 1960 and designed to house 20 people. Now 65 people work in the 30-building complex, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the lab, plans to close down a similar facility in Michigan and moved the 15 jobs to Athens.
At 552,000 square feet, the proposed lab would be about 25 percent bigger than UGA's 420,000-square-foot Ramsey Student Center, and more than twice the size of the 200,000-square-foot Student Learning Center.
UGA offered two large tracts of land for the facility. University officials estimate the building not only would employ 500 workers in well-paid jobs, but indirectly lead to the creation of hundreds more jobs, pumping as much as $6 billion into the Athens-area economy over 20 years.
It could make UGA and Athens a world leader in research into some of the world's most troubling diseases, said Ralph Tripp, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in animal vaccine development.
``Research-wise, it would clearly demarcate Georgia as a a primary facility in the United States for infectious disease research,'' Tripp said.
On the Net:
UGA facility: http://www.uga.edu/nbaf
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=111802
The University of Georgia's Southeastern Poultry Research Laboratory is showing its age, but the federal government is considering a $16 million plan to design a new facility for the lab. The item was included in President Bush's proposed budget for the 2008 fiscal year.
Congress has not yet approved the funds for the plan.
The 552,000-square-foot National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility would help confront threats from emerging disease pandemics or bio- and agro-terrorism.
It would be part of the federal Department of Homeland Security and would include biosafety labs where scientists can research and create diagnostic tools for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases, or those that can be passed between animals to humans.
Homeland Security officials are considering proposals for 18 sites. Finalists will be announced in June and a decision on the final site selection would be made next October. The building would become operational in 2013 or 2014, according to the Department of Homeland Security schedule.
Lab director David Swayne said design and budget costs typically are about 10 percent of the cost to build the project, which means the project could cost about $160 million.
Swayne said the research going on at the 46-year-old facility is vital for national security. The scientists there played a large role over in recent years in helping reconstruct the 1918 flu virus that killed between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide.
Now the lab is home to the country's main research on bird flu, a virus that many fear could kill millions of people again.
The lab was built in 1960 and designed to house 20 people. Now 65 people work in the 30-building complex, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the lab, plans to close down a similar facility in Michigan and moved the 15 jobs to Athens.
At 552,000 square feet, the proposed lab would be about 25 percent bigger than UGA's 420,000-square-foot Ramsey Student Center, and more than twice the size of the 200,000-square-foot Student Learning Center.
UGA offered two large tracts of land for the facility. University officials estimate the building not only would employ 500 workers in well-paid jobs, but indirectly lead to the creation of hundreds more jobs, pumping as much as $6 billion into the Athens-area economy over 20 years.
It could make UGA and Athens a world leader in research into some of the world's most troubling diseases, said Ralph Tripp, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in animal vaccine development.
``Research-wise, it would clearly demarcate Georgia as a a primary facility in the United States for infectious disease research,'' Tripp said.
On the Net:
UGA facility: http://www.uga.edu/nbaf
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=111802