NIH forms panel to advise agency on BU biolab

The National Institutes of Health has created a "blue ribbon panel," including experts on infectious diseases, public health, biodefense and environmental justice, to advise the agency during ongoing reviews of public safety and environmental issues posed by a Boston University laboratory designed to study the world's deadliest germs.

In November, another panel of scientists, the National Research Council, concluded that the NIH had failed to adequately address the potential risks to the South End and Roxbury neighbors of the Biosafety Level-4 lab if germs escaped from the facility on the Boston Medical Center campus.

The panel will hold its first public meeting next Thursday, March 13, in Wilson Hall on the third floor of Building 1 of the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. The meeting time has not yet been set.

"Our number one concern is the safety of the people working in the laboratory and those living in the surrounding communities," Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of NIH, said in a statement this morning. NIH is partially funding the lab, which is under construction on Albany Street.

"All of the analyses conducted to date indicate that the risks posed by this lab are extremely low," Zerhouni added. "We recognize that the community has remaining concerns, however, and we will address those concerns rigorously, objectively, and comprehensively. ... The goal is to manage and minimize risk to the lowest levels possible, recognizing that there is no 'zero risk'."

The 16-member advisory panel will be led by Dr. Adel Mahmoud of Princeton University and includes Dr. Dennis Kasper, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Ellen Berlin, spokeswoman for Boston Medical Center, said in a statement, "We welcome the additional study and applaud the creation of the blue ribbon panel of independent esteemed scientists. We are pleased they will consider all concerns, including the community’s and those expressed by the panel assembled by the National Research Council. We are confident that the lab will be safe, and this third-party examination is an important step in the public process."