Topeka ? Federal homeland security officials said Friday they would be in Kansas next week to inspect the state’s potential sites for a $450 million biodefense laboratory.

“The process is well under way for site selection,” said Chris Kelly, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

Seventeen sites in 11 states are in the running for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility or NBAF.

The 500,000-square-foot, high-security lab will feature state-of-the-art equipment to research and respond to potential threats to animal, plant and human health.

Kansas officials are pitching Manhattan and Leavenworth as possible sites.

In a telephone briefing with reporters, homeland security officials in Washington, D.C., cited four major criteria for the winning site: There has to be established research in the area; the site must have an adequate work force nearby; the local public must support the facility; and any local sharing of costs will be important.

Asked whether Washington politics could influence the site decision, Nicole Marcson, a homeland security attorney, said, “There’s no room for external political pressures in our review plan.”

A team of federal officials will visit the Leavenworth site Wednesday and the Manhattan site Thursday.

The Manhattan site is on the campus of Kansas State University, while the Leavenworth site includes 178 acres behind Fort Leavenworth. Officials from both cities said they are working together to support each other’s proposals.

The visits to all sites will wrap up by the end of the month, and the Department of Homeland Security says it hopes to narrow the field to three to five sites by the end of June.

Then the sites will undergo environmental impact studies, a process that will take 16 months. A location will be selected in October 2008 with construction to start shortly afterward.

Officials said they hope to start operations at the lab, which will replace an aging facility in New York, in 2014.