Research awaits final preparations at KSU lab

Work to begin in January at food security location

? Kansas State University’s Biosecurity Research Institute was completed last fall, but still no research is under way in the $54 million facility.

The institute has been touted as evidence of Kansas’ growing national stature in the area of food security.

And it is being used to try to lure a larger Homeland Security lab, the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, or NBAF.

But so far, no research.

James Stack, director of the institute, said research work probably would start in January.

Since the building was finished, K-State has been working on getting systems commissioned and numerous protocols in operation, Stack said.

These include such things as determining how emergency responders would react to potential problems.

“It takes a long time,” he said. “You have to walk through all the scenarios.”

The 113,000-square-foot BRI was one of the projects built under the state’s university research bonds, authorized by the Legislature in 2002. The state will make payments on the bonds for five years, and then K-State will take over.

Legislative budget leaders asked K-State officials to brief them on the institute recently, but the leaders were not critical about the lack of research.

Stack said once research starts, it will include a combination of K-State projects, private company initiatives and, probably, work with federal agencies.

The institute is a biosafety level three lab, meaning that researchers there will study pathogens that potentially are lethal to animals, such as the live virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease.

As part of efforts to land the proposed $450 million NBAF, state officials have offered to transfer land adjacent to the institute for the federal lab. And they have said Homeland Security could start its research at the institute while NBAF was under construction.