U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur announced a $7 million award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to the University of Toledo Health Science lab facilities.
The federal funding will be used to help renovate and more efficiently use the university’s Biosafety Level 3 and other research spaces. The current facility will be renovated and expanded to more than double biocontainment space and add five new suites for expanded research studies on COVID-19, influenza, tuberculosis and other diseases.
BSL-3 laboratories are used to study infectious agents or toxins that can be transmitted through the air.
The funding will also allow for the remodel of 21 existing Division of Laboratory Animal Resources rooms. The site improvements will better position the university to conduct federally supported biomedical research and improve faculty recruitment efforts.
“New investment and upgrades at the Health Science campus will better position its faculty to compete for federal research and to make discoveries important to protecting and sustaining life. This NIST investment underscores the value in retaining and attracting world-class research to our region. To compete for worldclass research opportunities, institutions such as UT’s College of Medicine and Life Sciences must be prepared with the right facilities and the right team. This award will help keep UT competitive from a facilities standpoint. We look forward to important advancements being achieved right here on our region’s only state medical research campus,” said Congresswoman Kaptur.
University of Toledo faculty are equally pleased and optimistic about the opportunities provided by this new grant. “This is a transformational grant,” said Dr. Jason Huntley, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and director of the BSL-3 lab. “We are going to have the opportunity to recruit new faculty, to study additional deadly diseases and build new partnerships. It also gives us more flexibility in responding more quickly to future infectious disease outbreaks.”
