BU uses T ads to promote benefits of biosafety lab

It is a tried-and-true advertising formula: a cheery family, a catchy tag line.

What's different about the ad campaign that debuted this week on T trains and buses is that it's trumpeting the virtues of a high-security research lab in the South End where scientists would study the deadliest biological agents known to mankind.

Boston University Medical Center launched the ads -- emblazoned with the phrase ''Finding Cures. Saving Lives." -- just days before a public hearing on the lab by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which must give its blessing to the research center before it can be built.

The appearance of hundreds of ads on the Orange and Silver lines represents the latest effort by BU to persuade residents of the South End and Roxbury that the construction of a Biosafety Level 4 lab on the medical school campus would not pose a risk but would instead foster treatments for lethal diseases.

The campaign begins a year after federal authorities notified BU that it had won a battle for an expected more than $1.6 billion in government grants over 20 years to build and run the lab, where researchers could potentially work with agents such as anthrax, ebola, and plague.

The Boston lab, and another being built in Texas, are cornerstones of the Bush administration's expanding initiative to prepare for acts of bioterrorism. Hundreds of scientists would work in the building, hunting for vaccines and treatments against deadly germs and viruses that could be turned into weapons.

But the lab, BU authorities promise, would also be primed to study newly emerging diseases such as SARS. And it is that mission that the ads stress.

A family of four -- two adults and two children -- smile ebulliently in the ad. ''Reason #14," the ad says. ''The Biosafety Lab will find cures for infectious diseases. For more reasons why the Biosafety Lab is good for our community, visit www.bostonbiosafety.com."; The website was not up as of last night, but BU authorities said they expect it to be as early as today.

The university is paying $27,100 to place 509 ads on Orange Line trains and 100 ads on Silver Line buses for eight weeks, according to Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The transit lines bisect neighborhoods where opposition to the lab has arisen.

A spokeswoman for Boston University Medical Center said the campaign reflects a desire by the school to explain a complex issue to the public.

''It wasn't like one person said, 'Oh, God, we should do advertising,' " medical center spokeswoman Ellen Berlin said yesterday. ''It was more like, 'How do we reach as many people as possible to tell the story of the biolab?' "

Berlin would not disclose the total cost of the campaign but said it was paid for by the university out of a general account and not with money from the federal lab grant.

Lab foes had placed their own ads on the T a few months back, and yesterday chided BU for attempting to distill such a complicated issue into an ad slogan, saying their own campaign was designed to tell riders where they could turn for more information about the lab, which is scheduled to open in 2007.

''Our reaction to the ad is that it's another example of BU providing false and misleading information about the lab," said Tomas Aguilar, community organizer for Alternatives for Community & Environment, the association that has championed the fight against the lab. ''This is too important for a decision about the lab to be made based on an ad campaign."

Riders yesterday appeared largely uninterested in the ads. On a midafternoon Orange Line train headed toward Forest Hills, five ads were in Car 1206 alone. One woman said she had no idea what the ads were addressing.

Another rider, who declined to give her name but said she lived in Jamaica Plain, scanned the ad and said, ''Frankly, I was wondering if I could put some graffiti on it. I would rather not have the lab there."

While all the ads hanging from the T yesterday addressed Reason No. 14 as to why the lab is a good idea, BU declined to disclose reasons 1 through 13, but spokeswoman Berlin said, ''Stay tuned."

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.