Officials for Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) revealed during its annual meeting that it would be getting some system upgrades thanks to new grant funding.

Nicholas Murphy, NEIDL’s associate director of facilities and engineering, said during the meeting that thanks to the CO6 grant, a funding opportunity from the NIH to improve existing laboratory spaces, animal facilities, or construct new biomedical research facilities, they had begun the process of engaging construction management firms.

They were awarded $7.5 million in September, 2024 from the grant

The first goal is to modernize the BLS3/ABSL-3 laboratory spaces by installing bubble tight dampers on supply ducts to enable isolation during fumigation and update room pressure controllers for precision HVAC controls. The second is to configure an Arthropod Containment Level-3 to optimize for vector transmission studies in adjacent vivarium space. The third is to modernize BLS-4 airlocks to chemical shower decontamination capability.

As the projects are in their earliest phases of actualization, Murphy did not provide a timeline on when these projects are expected to be complete. Actual construction would begin after they receive approvals from the NIH.

Murphy went over several other capital projects and operational improvements that NEIDL is undergoing. Those include the migration to the latest BAS operating platform, recoating of epoxy floors, automatic transfer switch modernization along with yearly recertifications and equipment rebuilds.

Director Robert Davey mentioned during the meeting that the NIEDL has been increasingly making efforts to move away from animal testing to pursue biophysiological systems, which act as a sort of miniature version of an organ, as modules to perform therapy testing and development.

“We’ve always been interested in this, but the NIH is now pushing this hard, and we’re excited to be a part of this initative,” he said.

How it’s done, he explained, is by taking cells from people through biopsies or blood samples and creating miniature organs out of them that can be used for testing in a dish.

Officials stressed the focus on safety as a top priority at NEIDL, which conducts research on potentially dangerous emerging infectious diseases, honing in on the extensive training lab and the continual oversight of its practices and protocols at the site.

“There’s a feedback process of learning from how we do things from all these people, and making our systems and processes better and better,” Davey said of NEIDL’s rigorous training program conducted at its purpose-built training lab. “So, this is an exciting this to grow.”

Kevin Tuohey, chief safety officer for NEIDL said that much of the safety measures of the facility were largely designed and implemented during its construction and thought about as it relates to the operational planning of the building, and they have so far been successful.

New safety protocols for the facility are first looked at and approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee, which includes members of the public, before it is submitted to the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC). Once approved by the BPHC, 30-day notice is provided to the BPHC executive director and the Boston City Council.

“It’s a very thorough, very long multiple review type of process before we even start initiating things like how you bring the agent into town,” said Tuohey.

Paired with that rigorous protocol oversight, the facility undergoes several assessments and inspections over the course of the year. The CDC and the BPHC conduct both announced and unannounced inspections of the facility in addition to routine Boston Fire Department inspections and output monitoring from the Water & Sewer Commission and Massachusetts Water Resource Authority.

On the side of community safety, the facilities comprehensive emergency management plan includes commitment to perform three exercises a year and provide training to all internal and external responders. Those exercises require that security, building and biosafety events be tested.