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Agriculture on the High Plains
Reseach lab could attract private business
GARDEN CITY, KAN.
(hppr) -
With another federal lab coming to Manhattan, KS, that land-grant university town is becoming a powerhouse for animal research. ABADRL is a research lab that studies small things, but its move could have a big impact. It's one of the USDA's many research labs throughout the country and it essentially studies livestock diseases spread by biting insects. Its move into the animal health corridor could mean an even greater attraction for private animal health businesses to move to Kansas. Tom Thornton, president of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, says the animal health corridor spreads from Columbia, MO, to Manhattan, KS and contains about 1/3 of the world's animal health industry. This lab would expand animal research to the smallest of levels.
The research is about very small things. It's about ticks and fleas and effectively they're the mechanisms that transfer diseases from animals to humans, so the importance of it as you can well imagine is that every pandemic, every single large pandemic at least in recent history has moved from animals to humans and again the mechanism of transmission are these arthropods or what are called vectors by scientists.
Thornton considers it a point of pride that this is the second federal animal research lab in the past year that has been slated to move to Kansas. He says they hope to keep expanding the research base in Kansas and to attract private companies as well.
About a month ago we announced one in Manhattan, a company called Megastarter moving from South Africa, literally, quite literally, following the ABDRL press conference that was another. I think we're currently looking at somewhere between 10 and 13 companies in the animal disease research space that have an interest in location operations in the state.
The current research lab is in Laramie, Wyoming. The facility has structural problems which would be really expensive to fix so the government had decided to relocate the research to another federal lab in Manhattan. This type of research requires being able to study at biosaftety level 3, which means biocontainment. USDA Scientist Sandy Miller Hayes explains.
Biosafety level 3 really steps up, that's where you have what is called biocontainment. In other words, when you go into an animal room you shower out of the animal room. The air handling is really carefully done. It's really designed so that what's in the building stays in the building and I don't mean to make everybody think of Vegas, but it really is that kind of thing, what's in BSL3 stays in BSL3.
Not everything that ABADRL studies requires such a high containment level. When ABADRL moves to Manhattan most of the research will be at the Grain Marketing and Production Research Center located on College Avenue. Everything requiring that higher security level will be researched at Kansas State University's biocontainment lab. Hayes thinks this will be a good setup for both the USDA and Manhattan.
This will definitely infuse new dollars into the Manhattan economy and we're thinking this will add probably about 2 million dollars into the Manhattan economy and that there will be some job openings that will occur. So I think this will be a good thing for ARS and it's certainly going to be a great thing for ARS in terms of being able to do the research again that we've wanted to do and haven't been able to do at Laramie and I think it will a good thing in terms of Manhattan, KS, too.
Hayes says the game plan is to have ABADRL moved to Manhattan by August of 2010. She expects a majority of the 25 employees will relocate with the lab. Tom Thornton with the Kansas Bioscience Authority says that this lab moving to Kansas is a point of pride.
And I think our strategy has been to work to really focus in areas where Kansas has an existing strength, clearly this is one of them, very strong research capabilities, really strong industrial clustering and what we hope will happen obviously is to keep expanding the research base but we hope that strength serves as a point of attraction to private companies to the state as well.
Thornton says in terms of outcomes the commercialization of one vaccine and the building upon of the animal health corridor would be big deals for Kansas. I'm Lindsey Fields, HPPR News.
© Copyright 2010, hppr
(2009-11-10)
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The research is about very small things. It's about ticks and fleas and effectively they're the mechanisms that transfer diseases from animals to humans, so the importance of it as you can well imagine is that every pandemic, every single large pandemic at least in recent history has moved from animals to humans and again the mechanism of transmission are these arthropods or what are called vectors by scientists.
Thornton considers it a point of pride that this is the second federal animal research lab in the past year that has been slated to move to Kansas. He says they hope to keep expanding the research base in Kansas and to attract private companies as well.
About a month ago we announced one in Manhattan, a company called Megastarter moving from South Africa, literally, quite literally, following the ABDRL press conference that was another. I think we're currently looking at somewhere between 10 and 13 companies in the animal disease research space that have an interest in location operations in the state.
The current research lab is in Laramie, Wyoming. The facility has structural problems which would be really expensive to fix so the government had decided to relocate the research to another federal lab in Manhattan. This type of research requires being able to study at biosaftety level 3, which means biocontainment. USDA Scientist Sandy Miller Hayes explains.
Biosafety level 3 really steps up, that's where you have what is called biocontainment. In other words, when you go into an animal room you shower out of the animal room. The air handling is really carefully done. It's really designed so that what's in the building stays in the building and I don't mean to make everybody think of Vegas, but it really is that kind of thing, what's in BSL3 stays in BSL3.
Not everything that ABADRL studies requires such a high containment level. When ABADRL moves to Manhattan most of the research will be at the Grain Marketing and Production Research Center located on College Avenue. Everything requiring that higher security level will be researched at Kansas State University's biocontainment lab. Hayes thinks this will be a good setup for both the USDA and Manhattan.
This will definitely infuse new dollars into the Manhattan economy and we're thinking this will add probably about 2 million dollars into the Manhattan economy and that there will be some job openings that will occur. So I think this will be a good thing for ARS and it's certainly going to be a great thing for ARS in terms of being able to do the research again that we've wanted to do and haven't been able to do at Laramie and I think it will a good thing in terms of Manhattan, KS, too.
Hayes says the game plan is to have ABADRL moved to Manhattan by August of 2010. She expects a majority of the 25 employees will relocate with the lab. Tom Thornton with the Kansas Bioscience Authority says that this lab moving to Kansas is a point of pride.
And I think our strategy has been to work to really focus in areas where Kansas has an existing strength, clearly this is one of them, very strong research capabilities, really strong industrial clustering and what we hope will happen obviously is to keep expanding the research base but we hope that strength serves as a point of attraction to private companies to the state as well.
Thornton says in terms of outcomes the commercialization of one vaccine and the building upon of the animal health corridor would be big deals for Kansas. I'm Lindsey Fields, HPPR News.
© Copyright 2010, hppr
