Regional Biocontainment Laboratory
In 2005, Colorado State University broke ground on a $22 million laboratory to continue developing the Judson M. Harper Research Complex on our Foothills Campus, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant out of its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The grant provides the university with advanced tools to research infectious diseases which have a staggering impact on the health of people around the world, robbing health and life by causing millions of illnesses. In fact, infectious diseases are the leading cause of deaths in the world.
This 33,850-square-foot laboratory is among the securest in the world,
featuring level-three biocontainment security. Its advanced safety and
security measures will allow university experts - who are among the best
in the world in researching infectious disease - to diligently work to
find ways to prevent, diagnose and cure these illnesses.
This new facility also provides university with better and safer equipment to research ways to protect the United States from bioterrorism. Within this state-of-the-art facility, researchers are better able to finding ways to prevent the use of biological weapons and discover counters to their effects. The new laboratory also provides advanced research capacity and facilities to bring university researchers together with government, academia and industry scientists whose expertise is unsurpassed in the world to together develop new vaccines, therapies and diagnostics for these pathogens to help people across the globe.
The new research facility adds to an already impressive federal and university effort centered on the Colorado State campus to research West Nile virus, drug resistant tuberculosis, yellow fever, dengue, hantavirus and other important infectious diseases.
The RBL3 also will house the Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. The Rocky Mountain RCE is an multi-disciplinary intellectual collaboration of researchers from Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The RCE will focus on zoonotic emerging diseases, which are animal diseases that are transmissible to humans. These diseases are the source of almost all emerging diseases throughout the world. The RCE will do international work to develop new vaccines, drugs and diagnostics for these emerging diseases; training regional and national scientists, physicians, veterinarians and other public health personnel in emerging diseases and biosecurity; and help state and federal agencies respond to emerging diseases.
RBL Director
Ralph Smith, Ph.D
Operations Coordinator
Jerry Tews, B.S.