Clear to partly cloudy. Low 74F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 74F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

NBAF officials say they’re working hard to make sure that the new federal animal disease lab will be as safe as possible for staff members and the Manhattan community.

The $1.25-billion National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, which recently finished construction, is wrapping up its commissioning process this summer. This involves testing the facility’s systems, and NBAF is expected to be operational by 2023.

In a recent interview with The Mercury, NBAF director Alfonso Clavijo and project manager Tim Barr detailed how the facility and all its technology, combined with the safety protocols scientists will follow, will keep dangerous pathogens contained.

“In order for us to ensure the safety related to the pathogens we’ll be working on, we have three levels of intervention,” Clavijo said. “One definitely the facility — that’s critical. There’s a lot engineering behind the building and our ability to work with these pathogens. Second is the level of regulatory compliance we have to ensure, registration process. In addition, we are developing a highly reproduceable, reliable set of protocols and procedures that the staff needs to understand and follow.”

NBAF is a Biosafety Level 4 facility, which is the highest level of containment. That means it works with the most dangerous and exotic microbes — those that are highly transmissible, may be fatal and for which there is no cure.

A BSL-1 lab, for reference, might work with a microbe like E. coli, which poses little threat of infection, so long as scientists wash hands and decontaminate work surfaces.

A BSL-2 lab might handle pathogens like staph (Staphylococcus aureus) and HIV, which are said to pose a moderate health risk. Workers in those labs would wear gloves, lab coats and eye protection. They would perform tasks that might cause splashes in a safety cabinet. The lab would have lockable doors.

BSL-3 labs would include the Biosecurity Research Institute — the building next door to NBAF at K-State — as well as Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which is the lab NBAF is replacing. Those labs are equipped to study microbes that can cause serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation, such as yellow fever and West Nile virus. Those pathogens tend to be controlled and registered through government agencies. All access is restricted and controlled. Scientists in BSL-3 labs would use wraparound gowns, scrub suits or coveralls. They perform all work inside safety cabinets. And those labs have features like directional airflow systems to keep potentially contaminated air clean.

So that brings us to the BSL-4 labs. Only four are currently operating in the United States.

BSL-4 labs work with highly dangerous and exotic microbes that have no treatment or vaccine and frequently cause fatal infections. An example would be Ebola.

As you can imagine, safety procedures for these labs fill entire manuals. Personnel must change clothing before entering and shower upon exiting. They must decontaminate all materials before leaving and wear a full-body positive pressure suit.

BSL-4 labs are restricted and have a dedicated supply and exhaust air.

The pathogens NBAF scientists will work with are animal and zoonotic diseases (those that can be transmitted to humans).

So far, the facility has seven pathogens on its list for planned research.

“The pathogens that we will be working with will be expanded,” Clavijo said.

A unit from Plum Island will move to NBAF and continue its work on three diseases: foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever and African swine fever.

Clavijo said another lab already doing research in Manhattan will be able to build on its work.

“They did a little bit of work with two diseases, which are Rift Valley fever and Japanese encephalitis, but of course they didn’t have all the facilities to do their work in the full potential,” Clavijo said. “So that’s a new transition to NBAF as a new unit.”

Another unit, which will use the BSL-4 spaces, will include research on Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and Nipah virus. Both of those affect pigs.

NBAF documents have mentioned that it would be a for scientists at the facility to study things like Ebola and Hendra virus, as well as emerging pathogens that we don’t know about. Clavijo said those aren’t in the plans right now. He said he intends to be as open as can can about what will go on in NBAF.

Barr said one way to look at the safety of NBAF is that there’s a set of engineer controls — the way things are designed — and a set of administrative controls — the safety protocols. He said the combination of those things determines your overall risk profile. “You have to acknowledge that there are risks to ensure proper controls are in place,” he said. “One of the basic features of the facility is air movement… One of the safety features is that, as we used to say, ‘Air is always moving toward bad stuff.’ So basically the deeper you go into the facility, more negative the pressure.”

If you’re in a hallway in one of the animal areas of containment, then the animal room is at a lower pressure than the hallway that you’re in. So when you open the door, air moves into that lab space. It’s the same thing all over containment.”

He also said there are interlocking doors, where you go in one door, and the door behind you has to close and seal before the other one will open.

In addition to the air system, everything that comes out of containment must be treated, often with a machine called an autoclave.

“Basically everything that comes out of containment, whether it’s liquid waste or solid waste is treated at temperature and pressure,” Barr said. “So there’s a thermal tissue autoclave that we use for carcass disposal. They’re just giant pressure cookers. They’re heated up to a high temperature. What comes out of that, even though they meet the criteria for a solid waste landfill now, we incinerate that in a medical waste incinerator here on site.”

Other items are treated in other autoclaves, he said.

Liquid waste, just as with the solid waste, is collected in the effluent decontamination system, Barr said. That system involves 11 7,500-gallon tanks.

The liquid is treated at high temperature and high pressure before being released outside the containment to NBAF’s wastewater pre-treatment plant, where it’s conditioned before it’s released to the city’s wastewater system.

“We’ve been working with the city over many, many years on our industrial waste permit,” Barr said.

Scientists entering BSL-4 portions of the building have to go through a process of changing clothes in an outer change room and donning a pressurized suit that’s inspected before they enter. The suit is connected to air lines as they move about the space. When they leave, they have to go through a chemical shower, then into a personal shower and change area before exiting.

“The most important that maybe sometimes people forget, in addition to having a state-of-the-art facility, at the end of the day it’s the people who do the work,” Clavijo said. “We’re investing a significant amount of effort in the safety and quality of the work. We’re very cautious. The team here is working very hard to ensure all of the environment is safe. I’m very excited to have a very strong team here at NBAF. I’m really excited to see how everything comes together within the next few months.”

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