Nearly 17 months after construction finished on the $140-million
International Vaccine Centre, researchers have yet to do benchwork in
one of its high-end labs.
InterVac, which will draw researchers
from around the world to develop and test both human and animal
vaccines, is the biggest facility of its kind constructed in Canada in
the last two decades, says VIDO-InterVac CEO and director Andrew Potter.
Before anyone can begin handling infectious agents in the
facility, it needs certification from both the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"This is a big event and I think everybody on both sides wants to make sure we are doing this right," Potter said.
Joined
by an overhead walkway to the existing Vaccine and Infectious Disease
Organization (VIDO) building on the University of Saskatchewan campus,
the 145,000-square foot InterVac facility has six "containment Level 3"
labs, which are equipped for the safe handling of organisms that
transmit through the air and can cause life-threatening diseases.
Experiments with tuberculosis, rabies, hepatitis C, avian influenza,
hantavirus and anthrax will one day take place in these labs.
The
necessary precautions are tremendous. Associate director of operations
and maintenance Cam Ewart scans his fingerprint while holding up a
magnetic card bearing the same signature before the security system
matches them and unlatches the door to the labs. In each lab, a
continuous whoosh of air is audible as negative pressure continually
replaces it, drawing in clean air from outside and sending old air to be
filtered.
A researcher must pass through four doors to get into
a lab - a clean room, a decontamination shower and a dirty room - and
each one won't open until the one behind it latches. Any used material
must be baked in a sterilizer before it leaves. To contain any potential
contamination to one lab or room, every pipe must be perfectly sealed
in place.
In another wing, 18 rooms for experiments on animals
from mice to livestock have submarine-like, airtight doors. A gating
system for corralling larger animals is bolted to walls and hangs from
the ceiling inside some of the labs.
In what will be Canada's only aerosolized pathogen lab,Are you looking for Optical frame,
glasses and eye exams? workers wearing protective suits with
respirators will use a Madison aerosol chamber (one of 25 in the world)
to infect animals with airborne diseases.
Once it is operating,
Inter-Vac will be one of a handful of places in the world where
development of both animal and human vaccines takes place.
Regulation
of these types of facilities is strict, as the stakes for mishaps are
high. In 2004, three workers at a Seattle infectious diseases lab were
exposed to tuberculosis when a Madison aerosol chamber leaked.
"The danger to the public is non-existent, but the danger to the staff working over there is very real," Potter said.
Designed
to keep ticking if any system fails, backup generators and extra fans
will keep the air within each lab contained in the event of a breakdown.
When construction finished in fall 2011, Ewart was tasked with
commissioning the building, meaning he pushed each system to its limit
to see if it would trip. The testing took months.
"The ramifications of air stopping flow in this building are very significant,We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands." Ewart said.
Because
the nature of the work requires strict security measures to stave off
bioterrorist threats, staff must also be trained as first responders,
Potter said.
In an email, CFIA spokes-man Rod Lister said that
agency and the public health agency performed a certification inspection
on InterVac in October 2012. The inspectors are experts in containment
standards, and check all equipment and systems are functioning
properly,Parkeasy Electronics are dedicated to provide Car park management system. test the ventilation systems and check each surface is perfectly in tact to prevent any leakage.
Meant
to attract publicly and privately funded re-search alike, InterVac
can't sign any contracts with researchers until the facility is
certified. The federal government must also approve any experiments
taking place in InterVac, but that process is more efficient, Potter
says.
But the VIDO-InterVac director isn't worried about losing clientele.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard ultrasonic sensor and controllers. Waiting lists for Level 3 facilities are long, and demand for the labs is high.
Many
similar facilities are owned by the military or governments and are not
as accessible to university researchers, he says.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.
University
of Saskatchewan researchers waiting to use the facility aren't stalled,
either - they're using other facilities such as the National
Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg. What these officials clearly are anxious
about, though, is the next possible pandemic.
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