Biolab continues to face setbacks

Boston University’s completed Biosafety Level-4 lab will not be able to open and begin research until it settles two challenges mounted by opponents of the facility that would house the world’s deadliest germs.

City Councilor Chuck Turner (Roxbury) called for the city to uphold a 1994 ban on rDNA, a hybrid genetic material often used in sophisticated biomedical research, at a hearing Wednesday night. Maintaining the ban is one way in which community opponents of the lab hope to prevent its opening.

Also Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health announced it would require at least a year more to ensure the lab is prepared for the high-level research proposed for it, according to a Boston Globe report. The NIH was ordered to perform a thorough safety review for the lab, after an earlier one was deemed insufficient in federal court.

The lab, located on BU’s Medical Campus, was originally slated to open for operation in 2007, though the arguments of residents and scientists who say the lab does not belong in a densely populated, urban area have so far prevented it.

Began in 2003, the project has cost $192 million. Scientists would research Ebola, anthrax and other level-4 pathogens, some of the most lethal and infectious diseases in the world, in the lab. Level-2 and 3 pathogens would also be researched in the same building.

Turner sponsored the hearing of the City Council’s Environment and Health Committee to address the extant city ordinance barring recombinant DNA research.

‘The Boston Public Health Commission regulation of 1994 states, ‘rDNA use requiring containment defined by the guidelines as Biosafety-Level 4 shall not be permitted in the City of Boston,” Turner said to about 30 people at the meeting.

Harvard Medical School researcher John Goodenough said the biolab would most likely use rDNA in research. It is a ‘standard tool in any microbiology lab, especially one studying dangerous diseases,’ he said.

‘Vaccines for level-4 diseases such as Ebola are made with and contain rDNA,’ Goodenough said.

However, Mark Klempner, the lab’s director and BUMC associate provost for research, said every research process would request and obtain approval from the BPHC ‘at the concept stage.’

‘The mission is to find ways to treat and prevent naturally occurring infectious diseases,’ Klempner said.

Goodenough said university research laboratories usually ‘make real advances by dabbling’ beyond the reach of their initially proposed project ‘- an ‘exciting, but potentially dangerous’ prospect.

Turner asked Klempner to guarantee that the laboratory would not apply for any projects involving rDNA, given the city regulations against its use.’

‘There is no way to determine whether or not the BPHC will approve a project,’ Klempner said.

Alternatives for Community and Environment member Eugene Benson said BU officials failed to tell the NIH of the rDNA regulations in Boston when the school was bidding for lab backing.

Benson read aloud a letter from August 2003 from the NIH to BU asking how National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories’ proposed level-4 lab could be built considering the BPHC’s regulations, as well as BU’s response.’

‘Dr. Klempner’s letter states that the regulations were ‘not intended in spirit or letter’ to prohibit such research,’ Benson said. ‘However, he is wrong on nearly seven out of 11 points in this letter.’

Klempner and other BU officials said their lack of clarity is because the BPHC regulations on rDNA are vague as well, but Turner said the NIH’s new delays show the biolab proponents’ arguments are weak.

‘The researchers at NIH haven’t been able to find a way to counter the scientific argument that Boston is not an appropriate place for this,’ Turner said.

Turner said he hopes he can gather the support of at least seven city councilors for an ordinance prohibiting the biolab’s opening.

‘Even if we only convince seven councilors to file an ordinance against the BU laboratory and it is vetoed [by the mayor], we can send a strong message that this is not a step that should be taken,’ he said.