Much has been made of the construction of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL, pronounced ‘needle’) in Boston’s highly populated South End neighborhood. These labs will house and harbor the study of the most dangerous human pathogens, such as Ebola, anthrax, and smallpox. The proximity of these infectious agents to city dwellers has been cause for understandable concern. The NIH has yet to rule whether or not the facility is safe to open, though the construction is complete, hirings for faculty have begun, and a tentative opening date has been set for April 2009. I have been monitoring the Boston biosafety level 4 (BSL4) lab story with detached interest, not entirely understanding of what kinds of work will be performed at the NEIDL and what the risks and rewards of this facility will be. Now, for the first time since the beginning of this whole debacle, I got a glimpse of the science behind all the fuss and worry.

I attended a talk by Elke Mühlberger, a new hire for the NEIDL. Mühlberger’s expertise lies with the Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever viruses. She came to the NEIDL from Marburg, Germany, appropriately enough. Her talk focused on the work she had done at a BL4 in Germany and ended with a description of the NEIDL, the facilities, types of work that will be done and why it’s a unique, important, and fascinating institution.

The key thing about the NEIDL is its provenance – it is a non-government, non-military, academic institution. This means it is able to hire non-US citizens, which government and military institutions cannot do. That’s a biggie. While I understand that the hiring restrictions have been put in place for security reasons, they shut out the expertise of the entire world. If all US labs were restricted in such a manner, they would stand practically empty.

In addition, a number of facilities will be available for use with BSL4 materials at the NEIDL that don’t exist at other BSL4 labs, such as microarray analysis, whole animal and tissue culture cell imaging, and an indoor animal vivarium. Other BSL4 labs are much smaller and can house a only limited amount of equipment and people. They require pathogens in infected samples to be inactivated before the samples can be removed to other, non-BSL4 labs with the required equipment. Often, this inactivation is so harsh that it ruins the sample for subsequent analysis. The NEIDL is (relatively) huge, and will have the facilities to process infected samples under BSL4 conditions, allowing immunofluorescent staining of infected cells, imaging of whole infected animals, and microarray/PCR on RNA from infected cells. These are basic techniques necessary to tease apart the basic biology of the pathogens .

The NEIDL is in a privileged position of having the money, the facilities, and (soon) the talented people to make huge strides toward understanding and getting a handle on some seriously scary infectious agents. Both the NEIDL staff and South End residents are waiting for the NIH ruling with bated breath. I was conflicted about the point of the NEIDL before (and am still the choice of location), but I am now really excited to see the science it will yield.