Galveston National Laboratory opens on schedule

Six weeks after Hurricane Ike shut down the UT Medical Branch in Galveston, the campus will see the recently constructed Galveston National Laboratory open on schedule today.
While the hospital was flooded by several feet of water and research labs were taken offline after losing power, the national lab was virtually undamaged.
The biocontainment labs were built 30 feet above sea level, and the building that houses the lab was designed to sustain damage from any storm. Construction on the national lab began in May 2005.
Though the laboratory will be owned and operated by the University, the bulk of its funding will come from the federal agency National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Professionals with academic appointments in the pathology department and the microbiology and immunology department will staff the national lab, which is part of the medical school.
“It is recognizing an untapped resource,” said James LeDuc, deputy director of the lab. “In the past, this kind of work was strictly done in government laboratories. After 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, and some natural events like SARS, the government realized that they really did need the assistance of the academic sector.”
About two-thirds of the national lab’s $174 million project was paid for by federal funds, with the state providing the remainder.
LeDuc said the designation of the national lab is a mandate to support national priorities in the study of infectious diseases. LeDuc referred to the separate discussions concerning a rescue plan for the UTMB campus between legislators and within the UT System Board of Regents as a “political minefield,” but said a decision to downsize the medical campus would affect the lab. 
“I think we would suffer because it’s difficult to meet our educational requirements without the active input of cutting-edge research and likewise the research ... is driven by having access to patients,” LeDuc said.
The construction of the lab on the island has drawn renewed criticism in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike from groups such as the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental activist group.
Chapter director Ken Kramer said Hurricane Ike showed the danger of placing important research labs in coastal areas.
“Perhaps the Galveston National Lab has sufficient safeguards to prevent a catastrophic release of deadly pathogens during a hurricane, but why run the risk in the first place?” Kramer said in an e-mail.
To assuage such fears within the Galveston community, the University set up a community advisory board of nearly 100 people and a five-member Community Liaison Committee.
R. Bowen Loftin, vice president and CEO of Texas A&M-Galveston and a member of the committee, said the liaison committee’s purpose is to decide when it is necessary for UTMB to inform the public about potential hazards stemming from the national lab’s operations.

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