MU to build bio- and agro-defense research centers, drawing $500 in federal funding

Columbia, Missouri-based Missouri University’s College of Veterinary Medicine will hold a public discussion this week on the construction of two research centers that would be used in efforts to combat bioterrorism and curb the outbreak of infectious diseases. In 2003 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave MU’s School of Medicine a $12 million grant to build a regional biocontainment laboratory as part of the government’s national biodefense plan. More recently, DHS has asked the university to draw up proposals to compete for a federally funded national bio- and agro-defense center. Such a project, which MU estimated could draw between $400 million and $500 million in federal funding, would aid in the study of potentially devastating diseases such as avian flu. Both centers would provide graduate students and scientists with the opportunity to study pathogens that might have serious health effects using state-of-the-art equipment.

Residents who live near such biodefense research centers do not always like the idea of having research into deadly disease conducted in their midst, as the stiff opposition from concerned residents in Boston and Kentucky to similar biodefense plans show. MU officials wisely are now asking the community for input on the centers’ construction. Joe Kornegay, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine said that both projects would benefit from public participation. “Each of them will play an important role in how we respond as a community and as a nation to the threat of infectious diseases and bioterrorism,” Kornegay said. “We want to be able to respond to questions and concerns that the community inevitably will have.”