Thanks to a 200 m2 extension, inaugurated today by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the Inserm-Jean Mérieux P4 laboratory in Lyon is the largest European center for high biological security.
Commissioned in 2000 under the leadership of Charles Mérieux, a major specialist in vaccination, its management was entrusted in 2004 to the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), which opened it to the international community. Its main mission is to study the most dangerous viruses (called class 4 pathogens). It is in this category of virus that we find the virus of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The laboratory also mobilized from the start of the Ebola epidemic to identify the strain of the virus.
An ultra secure laboratory
Perfectly hermetic, the units of this laboratory are depressurized to prevent any dissemination of viruses to the outside. The researchers work there equipped with a tailor-made air-conditioned diving suit, maintained at overpressure to protect them from any contamination. To enter or exit, they must pass through a depressurization airlock.
Already unique in Europe, the P4 laboratory will be able, thanks to its extension, to separate research and diagnostic activities, but also to house an animal facility, and boost training and experimentation activities. In addition, “this will make it possible to create an area specifically dedicated to pathogenic bacteria, such as multidrug-resistant strains of tuberculosis. Because we do not mix in the same room viruses and bacteria, the equipment is not the same “, explains the director of the laboratory, Hervé Raoul.
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