Facility and Building System Upgrades Support for the Howard T. Ricketts Biocontainment Laboratory

Project Summary/Abstract The Howard Taylor Ricketts Laboratory (HTRL) is a state-of-the-art Regional Biocontainment Laboratory on the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) campus in DuPage County, Illinois. Located twenty-five miles southwest from the University of Chicago campus, ANL is a federally (Department of Energy) owned site operated by the University of Chicago (UCHICAGO LLC). HTRL is a CDC certified facility owned by the University of Chicago and operated by the Department of Microbiology. Biosafety training and surveillance program involving classroom and laboratory activities ensures that staff, students and fellows comply with state and federal regulations to safely operate facilities and experiments with RG2, RG3 and Select Agent pathogens. The HTRL construction was completed in 2008. Over the last 13 years, the HTRL has hosted research programs studying the bacterial species Yersinia, Brucella, Coxiella, Rickettsia, Bacilli, MRSA and other ESKAPE organisms, as well as viral pathogens including low and highly pathogenic influenza, DENGUE and more recently SARS-CoV2. The facility currently hosts research program on Plague, Anthrax and MRSA, as well as a Core Research Facility for SARS-CoV2. The HTRL is the largest A-BSL3 holding facility in the region and regularly supports research from consortium institutions including UIC, Northwestern U and Loyola U. The HTRL is fulfilling its goal as a biomedical research facility that can rapidly respond to research needs and support biomedical research on emerging and re-emerging pathogens, discovery and testing of new therapeutics and vaccines. The building has been maintained in excellent working conditions and has been in constant use since its construction. However, with the swelling demands for BSL3 and ABSL3 space and research expertise, the development of new technologies for the study of infectious agents, this proposal is a request (i) to upgrade system components necessary to maintain biocontainment, temperature/humidity/pressurization requirements, and safe research operations, and (ii) to replace research equipment that have either outlived the intended useful life or no longer meet facility requirements.