By Steve Babcock
Despite recent protests surrounding construction of a Boston University biotechnology research facility similar to which Northeastern wishes to construct, such a center remains in the long term plans for Northeastern.
Northeastern is currently looking into a National Institute of Health (NIH) facility, Provost Ahmed Abdelal said, that, unlike BU’s, will not house research substances that require what is known as level 4 containment protocol.
“Our future aspiration regarding facilities is a new state-of-the-art bio-technology facility, but we do not envision work with biological agents that require level 4 containment such as that for which the BU facility is designed,” Abdelal said.
The safety regulations require lab workers to dress in full body protective gear to protect themselves from the agents they are working with.
Such a level of protection is required for the substances being research-ed at the proposed BU lab, including anthrax, smallpox and ebola.
The center, according to the BU Daily Free Press, was provided for by a $120 million grant from the NIH on Sept. 30, It could net NU’s chief neighbor up to $1.7 billion in grants with the anti-terrorism research it plans to carry out.
Northeastern already has what Abdelal said was “a major interdisciplinary initiative in biotechnology” that includes steps in cancer research and the discovery of “novel antibiotics.” While there are major safety implications involved in such research, Abdelal said that none of these currently require the type of protocol that is drawing community protest of the BU facility.
“Some of these [research] activities requ-ire the use of traditional safety protocols, but none requires the highest level of safety [level 4] that is needed for the BU project,” he said.
Despite the groundwork, though, Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Larry Mucciolo said there is currently no approved plan for a facility. To begin the process of securing the grant, the university’s Board of Trustees would have to approve a plan for the facility on campus.
Mucciolo acknowledged the importance of biotech research, saying that it will “continue to be a high priority” in terms of grants from the federal government and in the area of science, but also that funding such an endeavor would not be as simple as one may think.
“Biotech facilities are extremely expensive to build and equip, and sometimes difficult to site, as BU has learned,” Mucciolo said. “To make any such facility financially realistic, … grants and private gifts would be needed, among other things.”
Northeastern does not have the specifications of the NIH grant that would provide for the facility as of yet, but Abdelal said it would include one large grant, like the one BU was given, to build the facility, in addition to other “multi-year grants” that would each stretch over four to five years to cover the costs of running an NIH facility.
Student Government Association President Michael Romano said he supports such a facility, as research is necessary to the life of a large academic institution such as Northeastern.
“I think it’s essential that we continue to provide innovative and cutting edge academic curriculum that reflects the very fabric and essence of academia,” he said. “The faculty needs to have the flexibility to explore new fields.”
Romano also said that sinking resources into such initiatives would not detract from the quality of students’ experiences here.
Currently, the Boston City Council is considering a bill that would ban the proposed BU lab. Supporters of the ban, which include Roxbury residents, BU students and five city council members, say the lab could endanger thousands of city residents because of its location in Boston.
It is slated to be constructed in Roxbury, which has been the main cause of protest among residents and city councilors.
Kristen Blair, a sophomore physical training major, said she was bothered by “potential dangers” surrounding the project.
“Roxbury already has a lot of problems, and since it’s so close to such a large urban area, it seems like a lot of precautions are needed,” Blair said.
Kunal Busa, an information sciences graduate student, said she thinks it would be a good idea for Northeastern to build a research facility.
“We should have one because it produces more security against possible terrorism and fights against potential disease threats,” Busa said. “We can gain higher national security.”
Abdelal said the complaints are misled and would not be a factor to Northeastern in opening such a facility.
When he was dean of Georgia State’s College of Arts and Sciences, he said a facility with a level 4 safety protocol was built from a grant by the Center for Disease Control, and has not had any problems since 1998.
“Such level 4 laboratories have been established and used with perfect safety records at other universities and thus the alarm expressed by some regarding the BU facility, in my view, is unwarranted,” Abdelal said.
