K-State's Biosecurity Research Institute fights for U.S. plant, animal health and safety
Morgan Chilson
MANHATTAN — Kansas State University's $54 million Biosecurity Research Institute is a center of collaborative scientific research, drawing scientists, students and projects from around the world.
The BRI doesn't draw attention from the general public like the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, the federal animal disease research center that won't even open for a few years. But the BRI's attributes probably aren't fully understood outside of experts who work there, its leader said.
"That was what attracted me," said Steve Higgs, BRI director, who joined the facility in 2011. "It was the scope. I don't think people know the range of what we do."
An animated, energetic scientist, Higgs immediately reeled off examples of BRI's work. In a food wing, K-State's National Agricultural Biosecurity Center is examining how soldiers' food could be deliberately contaminated and the impact that would have.
The study is examining, for instance, the distribution patterns of anthrax in ground beef, said Ken Burton, program director for the NABC.
"They basically took and contaminated the carcasses and ground the beef into 1-pound chubs and were able to look at the distribution of the pathogen through the beef," he said.
Such a study was made possible by BRI equipment, which Higgs jokingly called "the world's most expensive shower curtain." It made sure researchers were safe from exposure as an animal was deliberately contaminated as if at a feedlot and then taken through processing.
It's one snapshot of BRI's work, which extends through plants, insects, food and agriculture to use the institute's biosafety level 3 capabilities.
BSL 3 means the facility allows the study of air-borne pathogens. NBAF will have a BSL 4 rating, which is the highest biosafety level and allows work with dangerous microbes.
"There's nowhere anywhere in the world where all of that is under one roof," Higgs said, adding that he was drawn to BRI because of the effect that can be had on a "truly global scale."
The abilities of BRI are being highlighted as Kansas State University draws international attention as the future home of NBAF.
"The comment we hear is K-State's the go-to place when it comes to biosafety, biosecurity," he said.
But space at BRI is at a premium, and researchers wanting to work on livestock and plant diseases in particular will have to wait, Higgs said.
"Our space is pretty much filled," he said. "It feels very bad to say to somebody, 'We don't have room for you at the moment for your research project,' but we're at that point. It doesn't mean they can't do those projects, but it means they can't do them as quickly as they'd like to."
The research and interest NBAF is bringing to Manhattan has affected BRI, where about one-third of the building is devoted to doing work related to NBAF's mission of animal disease research, Higgs said. But the remainder of the building is research outside that arena, including working on pathogens that Plum Island, the current New York facility that will be moved and reopend at NBAF, doesn't have on its radar.
BRI, for instance, has studied Rift Valley Fever in livestock, Higgs said. The disease can't be studied at Plum Island but can be studied at NBAF. It is a zoonotic disease, which means it can be transmitted from animals to people, he said.
"This is a pathogen that just sweeps through livestock in Africa," Higgs said. "It would be devastating if it were introduced here. We've done the first livestock studies in the United States since 1987. Up until now, U.S. researchers had to go overseas to do that research."
African and Swine fevers are also on the NBAF list of studied diseases, and Higgs said the BRI is the first nonfederal facility in U.S. history given permission to work on those two.
Collaborations with other researchers and entities is a critical part of the BRI's mission, and Higgs spends a lot of time on the road reaching out to other institutions. There is constant development of new programs and opportunities, he said.
"I'm actually very proud of the education and outreach that we're doing," Higgs said, adding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture sends about a dozen students from different countries to BRI to train in lab practices.
"We're kind of training new leaders," he said.
Another week-long course in plant biosecurity trains students in specific pathogens.
"You don't think of doing plant research in what we would call high containment," Higgs said. "Let's be honest, for the most part, they don't infect people, and you think, 'Oh, you really don't need all that personal protective equipment.'"
But the reality is things like an "odd pathogen" in Australia, Rathayibacter toxicus, that's transmitted by a worm to grass, are terribly destructive, he said.
"This is one of the agents selected by the U.S. government as a priority and as a highly dangerous pathogen because it's so toxic," Higgs said, pointing to photos of a sheep that died after eating grass infected with R. toxicus.
"We don't have that pathogen here yet," he said. "It's very exciting. We've got all the approvals in place, and we're going to be working on that soon."
The excitement and energy as Burton and Higgs talk about BRI and NADC's work is palpable. Both believe that what BRI is doing makes a significant difference in the world.
"One of the things that I think we try to emphasize to get people to understand why it's important to them is 75 percent of the diseases that were discovered over the last 10 years were zoonotic, they spread from animals to people," Burton said. "If you throw in a zoonotic factor into the fact that the responders actually could potentially come down with the disease that they're trying to isolate, that brings in public health, that brings in a whole new group that would be involved. The potentials there are just pretty mind-blowing, pretty staggering."
It's not hard to find examples. In 2013-14, a virus hit the United States's pig population and killed 10 percent of the pigs, Burton said.
"It spread like wildfire into almost every state," Higgs said. "It was spreading around by contamination of animals, trucks and people. It's still here."
The virus, Burton said, was closely related to another virus that's been in the U.S. pig population for years, so sows passed immunity to their piglets after they were exposed.
"Eventually they started to build up some immunity," he said, "but there were also some vaccines developed that helped out too. The first couple of years that was in the swine industry, it was pretty brutal."
What are other concerns on the radar?
"The one we don't know about," Burton answered.
"That is, sadly, the truth," Higgs said.
They easily listed real concerns, including African Swine Fever, which has no vaccine although researchers have sought one for decades. Anything that enters the bird pathway is always a worry because of how easily it moves beyond borders.
"West Nile has shown us that the unexpected can come here by methods that we don't know," Higgs said. "We have never figured out how West Nile got here."
It is not an industry for the faint of heart. Higgs laughed and agreed, pointing to the personal protective equipment researchers wear.
"It's not for people who are claustrophobic," he said. "This isn't for hypochondriacs and people with a nervous disposition. If you're somebody that thinks that every time you get a cold it's influenza — any of the pathogens that we work with that can infect people, they all start that way. People sort of say to me, 'Aren't you scared of this?'
"I've been going home to young kids throughout my whole career because I'm totally confident that I'm not taking anything with me. That sort of resonates with people."