Leakproof Lab

New facility for DNA work

Building 550 is an unprepossessing two-story, barracks-like structure in the U.S. Army's old chemical and germ warfare center at Fort Detrick. Md. Next week it will become the site of an important experiment. Converted at a cost of $250,000, the facility has been certified by the National Institutes of Health as the nation's first P-4 laboratory, where the riskiest genetic research now permitted by the NIH can be conducted. The lab's initial test will attempt to answer two vital questions: Can recombinant DNA research create dangerous organisms? If so, can they be safely handled in a laboratory?

In the first stage of the experiment, NIH'S Malcolm Martin and Wallace Rowe will splice DNA from the polyoma virus (which causes tumors in mice but not in humans) into a specially engineered strain of the common bacteria Escherichia coli. The bacteria will be fed to or injected into mice and hamsters, which will then be examined to determine 1) if the bacteria multiply into progeny that also contain the viral DNA, and 2) if the bacteria-carried viral DNA can cause tumors in the animals.

The experiments will also provide a good test of Building 550, which was designed to prevent material from recombinant DNA work from escaping into the environment. NIH officials are confident that the new lab is even more secure than the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, which was built by NASA at a time when it was still thought that astronauts might bring back dangerous bugs from the moon.

To enter the P-4 lab, scientists must first change into special protective clothing, then pass through an air lock designed to keep contaminants out; to leave, even if only for lunch, lab workers must pass through another air lock, strip off their protective clothing and then pass through a shower. At no time will the scientists involved in P-4 experiments come into direct contact with the materials under study. Those tests will be conducted inside "glove boxes," glass-fronted stainless steel cabinets fitted with shoulder-length rubber gloves that enable workers to manipulate the culture dishes, test tubes and microscopes mounted inside yet remain isolated from the experiment. The risk of any leakage will further be reduced by keeping air pressure inside the cabinets lower than that in the room.

All materials used in P-4 experiments will be moved into the glove boxes through an air lock. Everything that leaves will pass through a steam sterilizer and a disinfectant bath; the very air in the boxes will flow through an incinerator before it is vented outside. Even if an altered organism escapes, it should pose no threat. All P-4 experiments must be conducted with a weakened strain of E. coli that cannot survive outside the special conditions of the lab.

Foes of DNA research were on hand last week to protest the opening of the new lab. "Why is our money being used to manipulate the genes of life to create a brave new world?" asked Jeremy Rifkin of the Peoples Business Commission. But many scientists who only a year ago opposed recombinant DNA research are now largely convinced that the hazards have been overstated. Besides, as Microbiologist John E. Nutter, manager of the NIH P-4 program, notes, "the potential benefits of being able to reproduce large quantities of genetic material are enormous."

Those benefits were dramatically demonstrated last fall when California scientists inserted into the DNA of E. coli bacteria synthesized copies of a gene that orders the production of somatostatin, a vital brain hormone in mammals. Researchers who first isolated that hormone needed nearly half a million sheep brains to produce 5 mg (.00018 oz.) of the substance. But the California scientists used only about 8 liters (2 gal.) of a culture containing their re-engineered bacteria to obtain the same amount.

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