Tripler adds biohazard lab
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Tripler Army Medical Center is moving ahead with plans for a $41 million biomedical research center to update its labs, attract research grants and provide the state with greater capabilities to test for and safely contain biohazards such as anthrax.
The 59,000-square-foot lab on Tripler Hill would have a "biosafety level 3" rating, allowing work on some of the most hazardous agents. Construction is anticipated in 2004 or 2005, while site preparation for a smaller, $1.7 million modular lab attached to the hospital is expected to begin in June.
The project has been scaled back from the much larger, 231,000-square-foot Biomedical Research and Technology Center at Tripler envisioned last year in partnership with the University of Hawai'i and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Army officials say quick response to possible bioterrorism remains a priority. The state Department of Health also is planning a $1.5 million expansion of its lab in Pearl City to enhance its level 3 capabilities.
"I see this Tripler facility as being a good adjunct to the facility we're constructing, in that it's helpful to have some redundancy and added capacity," said Health Department director Bruce Anderson. "We're a long way away from Mainland facilities, and it's important we have the capability in Hawai'i to process and analyze specimens."
Lab activities involving infectious microorganisms are rated by biosafety level, on a scale from 1 to 4. According to the National Institutes of Health, biosafety level 3, BSL-3, applies to "clinical, diagnostic, teaching, research, or production facilities in which work is done with indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease as a result of exposure by inhalation."
From a medical research standpoint, "you need special biocontainment in order to handle these specimens," said Col. Ernie Takafuji, deputy commander for readiness for Tripler and the Pacific Regional Medical Command. "You don't want contamination."
The anthrax scare after Sept. 11 overwhelmed lab capabilities in Hawai'i. More than 400 packages and letters were tested by the state lab. A Navy lab at Pearl Harbor also provided analysis. But even the planned Tripler lab could be tied up in an emergency, Anderson said.
"I think it's important to develop our lab, because there's no guarantee the military facility will be available — but I see them as compatible and mutually beneficial," he said.
The impetus for the Tripler project came before Sept. 11, as Congress approved $1 million for a Biomedical Research and Technology Center feasibility study.
Originally a partner with UH's John A. Burns School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs, the research facility was expected to be a "center of excellence in biomedical research and technology in the Pacific Rim," according to an Army press release.
The $150 million center would have provided facilities to support the Graduate Medical Education Program, and been a lure for research programs financed by lucrative medical industry grants to develop vaccines, drugs and diagnostic equipment.
Tripler is pursuing the latest plan alone, after UH and the VA failed to obtain the necessary federal money.
The research goal is still very much a priority. And bioterrorism has become an even greater concern.
The planned lab "has evolved into something with much more of a readiness mission as well as a research mission," Takafuji said.
New state regulations that took effect last November relaxed the use of potentially hazardous biological materials in scientific research to boost defensive capabilities against bioterrorism and keep advanced research in Hawai'i.
At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a plan for a level 3 lab drew fire from environmentalists over safety issues.
Scientists at the research facility would work with live infectious agents such as plague, anthrax, tuberculosis and other deadly agents. There are only three labs in the nation designated level 4, where agents pose a "high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening disease."
Takafuji said the Tripler lab would not use live organisms such as anthrax in its research.
"This research center is not intended to be a storage center for biological agents," he said. "You might want to think of it as a place where you can process biological agents when you don't know what you have."
If something resembling plague were identified here, for example, the sample would be sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, or another lab, Takafuji said.
Lab testing could, however, involve killed organisms. Many diagnostic tests don't use live organisms, but DNA fingerprints that are an indirect marker of an organism, Takafuji said.
"If indeed we had live organisms, it would be under the strictest biocontainment, obviously ... but the indications are right now we won't need that," Takafuji said.
An environmental assessment of the project is planned.
The Tripler Hill facility's primary mission will be to support the graduate research program, while the 27-by-45-foot modular BSL-3 lab will be used as a diagnostic tool for patient care, the Army said. Approximately 200 people are in the program, training in a variety of specialties.
Anderson said a portion of an $8.36 million bioterrorism grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be used, along with state money, to pay for the Pearl City lab expansion, which will convert the current unit to a BSL-2 lab and construct an adjacent BSL-3 facility.
The new lab, solely diagnostic, is expected to be finished next year or in 2004.
UH is planning a 2,000-square-foot BSL-3 lab at its medical school, which is being moved to Kaka'ako.
"I don't think they are looking at it in terms of homeland defense," Takafuji said. "It's more scientific research."
Another BSL-3 lab is at Leahi Hospital, where UH has a retrovirology program.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
