Maryland is setting its sights higher than the network of labs working on biological terror defense in Baltimore City.
The state is one of 11 vying for a $450 million, more than 500-square-foot federal biodefense lab, said Aris Mellisaratos, one of the former architects of the state?s effort to secure the lab.
Federal officials have visited 17 sites proposed for the lab including the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, said Melissaratos, the former state secretary of the Department of Business and Economic Development.
The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, one of the interests lobbying for the lab, conducts work on biological threats at the Medical Biotechnology Center on Lombard Street in the city, UMBI spokesman Gene Levinson said.
Levinson could not immediately confirm the institute?s role in positioning the state for the federal facility.
Other, high-security facilities exist at Fort Detrick and Aberdeen, as well as the University of Maryland, College Park.
