What is the Galveston National Laboratory?

The “Galveston National Laboratory,” or National Biocontainment Laboratory, will be a sophisticated biomedical research facility to be constructed largely with funds provided by the National Institutes of Health in which scientists can safely study infectious agents that potentially might be used by bioterrorists or that pose threats as naturally emerging diseases. Two National Biocontainment Laboratories are to be constructed, to house scientific research projects to develop and assess countermeasures (including new vaccines or therapeutics) to diagnose, prevent or effectively treat these infections. The aim of the research is to protect people against the diseases caused by these infectious agents, not to develop biological weapons.

This is a critically important scientific mission because in many cases there are no readily available vaccines or therapies to protect against the infections being studied. In addition to offering a large amount of research space at biosafety levels 2 and 3, the Galveston National Laboratory will contain a full complement of labs operating at biosafety level 4, the highest and most secure level of biological containment. (UTMB has recently begun operating a smaller, 2,000-square foot BSL4 lab, the first such laboratory on a university campus in the United States.)

The National Biocontainment Laboratory at UTMB is called the Galveston National Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research, or “GNL” for short. The GNL will be owned and operated by UTMB in support of NIH’s Biodefense Research Agenda, and will also be available to support public health efforts in the event of a public health emergency. All of the research to be done within the facility will be directed or (in the event that research is carried out by guest investigators from other institutions) overseen administratively by UTMB scientists and faculty, and all of this research will be subject to the same regulations and restrictions that guide other UTMB scientists. The NIH’s Biodefense Research Agenda, which would be pursued within the GNL, can be viewed at: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense/research/biotresearchagenda.pdf and http://www.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense/research/Categorybandc.pdf.