New U.S. lab will work with deadly animal pathogens—in the middle of farm country
Virologist Robert Cross’s lab is equipped to handle some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. At the Galveston National Laboratory he has worked with guinea pigs infected with Ebola virus and macaques carrying Lassa fever. What it can’t accommodate are pigs, which are common carriers of the deadly Nipah virus. “We’re not really geared to handle large animals,” says Cross, who wears a pressurized biosafety suit for his studies. “You can’t just pick them up when you’re wearing these space suits.” That’s one reason why Cross is welcoming tomorrow’s ceremonial opening of a massive new high-security laboratory in Kansas, the first in the United States designed with pens and equipment such as cranes to move big animals tainted with the most hazardous infectious agents, including Nipah virus....