Colorado State Sets Open House for New Bioresearch Facility

Area residents are invited to tour Colorado State University’s new BioEnvironmental Hazards Research Building March 17.

The building, which is completed but will not be operational during the tour, is a state-of-the-art facility on the university’s Foothills Campus. It will contain research currently being conducted at Colorado State in response to the worldwide resurgence in diseases such as tuberculosis and mosquito-borne viruses.

The Biosafety Level 3 building exceeds criteria set forth by the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control. It is one of a half-dozen Biosafety Level 3 research units in Fort Collins, which has become a center for work on bacteria such as tuberculosis and plague and viruses such as dengue fever. The 12,000-square-foot building houses a 9,000-square-foot "envelope" that is impervious to bacteria and viruses. Air entering and exiting the envelope, which houses two lab suites for TB and one for virology, is HEPA-filtered to remove all bacteria and viruses before the air is exhausted.

The open house will run from 2-8 p.m. The 45-minute tours will be conducted by Colorado State staff for groups of 8-10 visitors.

To reach the research facility, take Overland Trail Road to Rampart Road (north of Colorado State’s Equine Center and south of the Overland Trail-LaPorte intersection). Follow Rampart Road left past College Lake and to the new building, which is located behind (east of) the Environmental Toxicology and Technology Center.

For additional information, call 491-6136.