Farhang Alem, Interim Director of the Biomedical Research Laboratory, Institute for Biohealth Innovation, and Aarthi Narayanan, Professor, Biology, received funding for the project: "Advancing Infectious Disease Capabilities through BRL Core Support."
As part of this project, Alem and Narayanan will: 1) implement a comprehensive BSL-3 facilities preventative maintenance and upgrade plan to ensure continuity of operations, compliance with federal regulations, and a safe and secure facility; 2) enhance safety and quality of BSL-3 laboratory practices; and 3) create two new research cores in high containment.
George Mason University (GMU) Biomedical Laboratory (BRL) is one of 12 Regional Biocontainment Laboratories (RBLs) established through NIAID support in the early 2000s to serve as Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facilities to conduct cutting-edge pathogen research and serve as resources to rapidly address emerging infectious disease outbreaks.
The expanded Microphysiological Systems (MPS) core will enable organ-on-a-chip (OOC) and organoid models for lead optimization, safety assessment, off-target effects, toxicity, and efficacy analysis.
The Advanced Animal Research (AAR) core will support pre-clinical studies starting with in vivo exposures and countermeasure testing and transitioning to advanced animal imaging, spatial tissue, and cellular analysis.
Together, the cores will accelerate vaccine and therapeutic drug discovery and improve understanding of the transmission and pathogenesis of infectious agents as well as host response.
Alem and Narayanan received $2,495,244 for year one of a five-year grant totaling $12,206,840 from the National Institutes of Health for this project. Funding began in Aug. 2023 and will end in late July 2028.
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