Behind the Biosecurity: Exclusive Look Inside the State-of-the-Art ABL3 Laboratory Fighting Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Expanding Access to Advanced Research Facilities for Livestock Disease Prevention
The National Institute of Animal Quarantine is taking a significant step forward in supporting private research and development on livestock diseases by expanding access to its advanced research facilities.
As part of this initiative, the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Research Center Large Animal Laboratory (ABL3) will be opened to the private sector from December 16 to February 28 next year. This move aims to actively support private research and development on livestock diseases that pose a national disaster.
Animal Use Biosafety Level 3 (ABL3) facilities are specialized research facilities designed to safely conduct animal experiments without releasing high-risk pathogens such as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever virus to the outside. The Quarantine Headquarters is the only ABL3 facility in Korea that allows high-risk pathogen testing on large animals such as cows and pigs.
The Quarantine Agency has already seen success with its biosafety level 3 facility (BL3), which was opened to the public for a pilot project in August of last year. The facility was used for disinfectant efficacy tests on high-risk pathogens, resulting in significant cost savings and reduced testing periods.
With the additional opening of the ABL3 facility, the Quarantine Headquarters expects private sector vaccine research on livestock diseases to become more active. This move is expected to contribute to the development of promising domestic technologies for the future, such as the development of veterinary drugs and disinfectants for preventing livestock infectious diseases.
Public and private organizations interested in using the Quarantine Headquarters ABL3 facility must submit relevant documents through the National Livestock Quarantine Integrated System online reservation system by Monday, September 30. Approval will be granted after deliberation by the Quarantine Headquarters Biosafety Committee and review by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).
While the large animal laboratory of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Research Center will only allow experiments using the foot-and-mouth disease virus among high-risk pathogens, the Quarantine Headquarters plans to gradually expand private development in the future. The Biosafety Research Building 3 (ABL3), which was completed this year, is scheduled to be fully operational starting next year, and the ABL2-level critical animal infection facility currently under construction is expected to be completed by next year and put into operation starting in 2026.
Kim Jeong-hee, the head of the quarantine headquarters, emphasized the importance of institutional support for private research and development, stating, “We will not spare institutional support to create promising domestic technologies for the future.”