What is special about a level-3 laboratory and what purpose does it serve?
Background on this question can be found on the Laboratory Biosafety Level Criteria PDF, which gives a brief overview of the differences between the biosafety levels 1–4. Essentially, as the scale increases from 1–4, the agents being studied: • are more pathogenic to people; • are more exotic in nature; • and are less likely to have existing vaccines, therapeutics or cures. BSL4 research is not undertaken at the Cummings School. What is unique about the NE-RBL is that it is a stand-alone BSL3 laboratory. Many hospitals have biosafety level 3 laboratories within them—a typical example would be a tuberculosis laboratory. As a stand-alone laboratory, the NE-RBL provides a larger, safe and secure laboratory environment to study infectious agents. The lab enables Tufts researchers: • To expand the work that they already do in the area of infectious diseases. Researchers use this laboratory to better understand how various agents can make people and animals sick, how to prevent illness and h
