New Tufts vet lab to study insect-borne diseases By Marc Songini
Weekly Update: Biotechs pitch for funds; Dyax cuts jobs [April 3, 2009]
The newly-dedicated biosafety lab at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine hopes to be welcoming guests most people just shun: dangerous-disease-carrying arthropods, such as West Nile- or Lyme disease-carrying mosquitoes or ticks.
Not to worry -- these guests will find it quite difficult to leave the Grafton-based facility, which is one of perhaps only two biosafety level 3 ``insectary'' labs in Massachusetts that are proposed to handle arthropods and study the diseases they transmit.
This arthropod lab is part of the $31 million New England Regional Biosafety Laboratory that officials dedicated on Monday. Along with the insectary at the Boston University Medical Center's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories facility on Boston's Albany Street, the Cummings facility is unique to the state, said Sam Telford, associate professor at Tuft's department of biomedical sciences. The arthropod lab currently at the Cummings is conducive to working only with ticks. The new insectary's 450 square feet will potentially handle ticks, but also mites, lice, fleas, mosquitoes and bed bugs, said Telford. It will also house caged animals used in the research.
Such a biosafety level 3 lab is needed to study arthropod-borne infections safely and find vaccines and cures. ``Literally, there are several hundred arthropod viruses,'' he said. ``There are 10 different kinds within arthropods that bite humans or animals in Massachusetts, and of those, four are classified as biosafety level 3 agents, including West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis.'' Lots of public attention is devoted to West Nile virus, but many viruses, such as Jamestown Canyon Virus, go undetected because they produce few or mild symptoms, said Telford. In fact, there are two mosquito-borne infections, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya, that experts fear may hit the United States and make West Nile virus ``look like Play-Doh.''
The insectary will have a number of special safety controls. Researchers must wear protective gear and there will be an ``air curtain'' to ensure nothing gets out. Currently, the lab is awaiting tenants, and following a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) inspection, could be ready for business in midsummer.
The potential development of a facility to work on insect vaccines is a welcome prospect, said Guy Barker, the Eastern Massachusetts operations director for Passport Health LLC in Woburn. The company provides immunization services to clients. Barker said Passport would welcome a vaccine for Lyme disease, which is carried by ticks. He claimed the disease afflicts about 80 New Englanders each week during the summer. ``The pity is that there was a vaccine once, but it was withdrawn by the manufacturer in 2002 because of poor sales.''
Internationally, there are other diseases, as well, such as dengue, transmitted by mosquitoes, which have no vaccines. ``There is a lot of demand for new vaccines and new biotechnology,'' said Barker.
-------------------- My biofilm film: www.whyamistillsick.com 2004 Mycoplasma Pneumonia 2006 Positive after 2 years of hell 2006-08 Marshall Protocol. Killed many bug species 2009 - Beating candida, doing better Lahey Clinic in Mass: what a racquet! Posts: 830 | From Mass. | Registered: Aug 2006
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good find cold feet! couldn't read it all due to long paragraphs; any chance you could break up those long ones to benefit us neuro folks like me? thanks for your consideration. xox
just click on pencil to right of your name to do it...
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