What kind of laboratory is George Mason University building?
The university is building a BSL-3 laboratory, named the Biomedical Research Laboratory (BRL). Research will focus on diseases considered by the U.S. government to be potential bioterror threats, such as anthrax, tularemia, and plague, as well as on emerging infectious diseases, such as SARS, West Nile virus, and influenza. The facility is not designed for and cannot be retrofitted to accommodate BSL-4 agents such as Ebola, Marburg, or smallpox Biodefense experts believe the greatest biological threat comes from aerosolized agents; that is, bacteria, viruses, or toxins that can be spread through the air and inhaled by victims. For this reason, the primary use of the BRL will be to develop and test treatments that will improve the ability to save the lives of people exposed to airborne biological agents.
