Photo: BIOCEV
A new laboratory enabling safe work with highly infectious viruses and bacteria opened this week at the Biocev science centre in Vestec near Prague. The state-of-the-art facility will enable scientists to study hepatitis B, HIV, Covid and other dangerous viruses.
The Biotechnology and Biomedical Centre research centre of the Academy of Sciences and Charles University, opened in Vestec, a small village on the western outskirts of Prague, already in 2014.
However, over the past year it has now been upgraded to a high-security facility, known as BSL3, which enables scientists to work with dangerous viruses.
Tomáš Košt’ák, a manager for JRTech, the company that carried out the year-long reconstruction, says the laboratory must comply with very specific conditions concerning heating, ventilation and air-conditioning:
“The lab’s air ventilation system has to be self-contained. All the exhaust air from the lab is filtered through HEPA filters. There is no way the viruses could escape from the main room, because they are sealed in a vacuum.”
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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Eva Kézrová