Biodefense Lab Support
As a core component of the mission of multiple federal agencies, the successful conduct of safe, secure and responsive research involving infectious pathogens requires an effective balance of intellectual freedom, program-driven objectives, and regulatory controls. Recent events, including the emergence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), underscore the need for programs and facilities dedicated to the understanding of emerging and established infectious diseases that pose a threat to public health.
Tunnell Government Services (TGS) understands the scientific and technical requirements needed for the research and development of medical countermeasures for high-consequence infectious diseases. We support these efforts by providing highly specialized scientific staff, including physicians, veterinarians, virologists, immunologists, biophysicists and histologists, enabling a broad spectrum of activities, as outlined below:
- Biocontainment research, including (animal) biosafety level 4 research
- Viral pathogenesis studies
- Animal model development (in close coordination with FDA requirements)
- Medical countermeasure discovery, evaluation, and development
- Biological threat characterization
- Medical imaging of virus infections
Since 2007, TGS has successfully performed as a subcontractor in support of the NIH/NIAID Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick (IRF-Frederick), providing scientific leadership and research support involving the study of mechanisms of virulence of arteriviruses, bunyaviruses, coronaviruses, filoviruses, arenaviruses and orthopoxviruses both in vitro and in animal models. Operating within this facility’s (animal) biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) containment suites, TGS personnel are actively engaged in fulfilling IRF-Frederick’s mission to evaluate and develop effective treatments and therapeutics for a wide variety of human Select Agents for future FDA licensure.