Portland, Ore. – OHSU will build a new biosafety lab at its Marquam Hill campus in Portland, thanks to an $8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. It could be a critical step in combatting the next big infectious outbreak.
“The next pandemic is not a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when’,” says Dr. Fikadu Tafesse, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine. He says a new Biosafety Level-3 lab is necessary to make sure the hospital and the state are ready. “We want to build a state of the art facility to do very expanded work on infectious diseases that are emerging.”
Dr. Tafesse says it’ll replace an existing BSL-3 lab, “Our current lab was built over 30 years ago for HIV research, and has just two workspaces.” The new one will be much larger, “This facility is going to be not only for OHSU. It will be a resource for researchers across the northwest.”
Construction will get underway soon on the $18 million project, and is expected to take three years. Dr. Tafesse says the current lab will remain operational until the new facility opens.
