New biosafety lab on agenda for July 26 event at Argonne National Laboratory
Note: A briefing for members of the news media will precede the public event at 6 p.m.

Photo: [click to enlarge] An architect's rendering of the proposed laboratory For more information, please visit: http://www.htrl.uchicago.edu/.

The University of Chicago will hold a community outreach event from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 26, at Argonne National Laboratory’s Visitors Reception Center to discuss preparations to build a regional biosafety laboratory at Argonne in 2006. The event will include presentations, posters and video. Researchers and safety and security personnel involved with the project also will be available to answer questions.

Research at the Howard T. Ricketts Laboratory will focus on finding better ways to detect, prevent and cure infectious diseases and to train researchers. The laboratory is one of nine regional and two national biosafety laboratories being established by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The laboratory will support research conducted by the new Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research that was awarded to the University of Chicago in 2003. The regional center is a collaboration of 14 Midwestern institutions led by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

The Ricketts Laboratory is named for the University of Chicago’s Howard Ricketts (1871-1910), who discovered the organisms that cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever and typhus.

Visitors can find the Argonne Visitors Reception Center by entering through the North Gate, just south of Interstate 55 on Cass Ave.

For more information about the event, call (773) 834-9174. For more information about the Ricketts Lab, see http://www.htrl.uchicago.edu/.