Rocky Mountain Laboratories

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Rocky Mountain Laboratories
US-NIH-NIAID-Logo.svg
Agency overview
Formed1928 (1928) [1]
Preceding agency
  • Hygienic Laboratory
Headquarters Hamilton, Montana
Employees400 [1]
Parent agency National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institutes of Health, United States Department of Health & Human Services
Website

Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) is part of the NIH Intramural Research Program and is located in Hamilton, Montana. Operated by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, RML conducts research on maximum containment pathogens such as Ebola as well as research on prions and intracellular pathogens such as Coxiella burnetii and Francisella tularensis . [2] [3] [4] RML operates one of the few Biosafety level 4 laboratories in the United States, as well as Biosafety level 3 and ABSL3/4 laboratories. [5]

Contents

History

RML evolved as a result of research on Rocky Mountain spotted fever that began around 1900, in the Bitterroot Valley. A deadly disease of unknown origin plagued early settlers of the valley. It was known locally as "black measles" because of its severe, dark rash. Montana researchers were working in the area in makeshift cabins and tents. [5]

RML formally began as the Montana Board of Entomology Laboratory. It was opened in 1928 by the Montana State Board of Entomology to study Rocky Mountain spotted fever and the ticks, Dermacentor andersoni , that carry it. Local opposition to the "tick lab" was strong, as residents worried ticks would escape the laboratory and cause an outbreak in the community. To allay their fears, the original laboratory building featured a small moat around its perimeter. In 1932, after spotted fever was diagnosed in other states, the federal government bought the facility and renamed it Rocky Mountain Laboratory. The laboratory expanded, adding faculty to study zoonotic diseases including typhus, tularemia, and Q-fever. [6]

During World War II, the United States Public Health Service used the laboratory to manufacture Yellow fever vaccine. When the human serum–base vaccine caused an outbreak of Hepatitis B that infected more than 350,000 U.S. soldiers, two researchers at the laboratory, Dr. Mason Hargett and Harry Burruss, developed an aqueous-base vaccine that combined distilled water with virus grown in chicken eggs. By the end of the war, the laboratory distributed more than 1 million doses of the improved yellow fever vaccine. [6]

In the post-war decades, the laboratory broadened its scope to study chlamydia trachomatis and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies including scrapie, mad cow disease, and chronic wasting disease. In 1982, Dr. Willy Burgdorfer discovered Borrelia burgdorferi , the tick-borne bacterium that causes Lyme disease. [6]

Post 9/11 and Fauci

In the aftermath of September 11 attacks, Anthony Fauci convinced President George W. Bush to set up a bio-defense program and build a BSL-4 facility at RML, since the Bethesda campus of NIAID did not have the necessary real estate to build a facility. Fauci visited during the construction of the BSL4 lab in 2006. [7] Fauci said the electronic age made it seem as if RML is just across the street from his Bethesda, Maryland NIAID campus. [8]

Around 2009, Heinz Feldmann and Vincent Munster relocated to RML. In 2011, RML published its first transmissible vaccine paper for "disseminating" an Ebola vaccine to prevent Ebola transmission in wildlife populations. [9] In 2018, RML won two DARPA projects for transmissible animal vaccines. [10] Fauci's last visit to RML was in October 2019. [11] [12]

SARS-CoV-2 spillback

Since the 1980s, RML has used American mink (Neogale vison) for disease models. [7] Mink are not found in China but are a SARS-CoV-2 transmission model. [13] [14]

Around 2011, RML started using Syrian Golden hamster's (Mesocricetus auratus) for disease transmission research. [15] SARS-CoV-2 transmits efficiently in Syrian hamsters. [16]

In 2017, RML started a deer mouse (Peromyscus) colony. [17] The BSL-4 laboratory had used deer mice as a model for research on self-spreading vaccines. [18] [19] SARS-CoV-2 transmits efficiently in deer mice. [20] [21]

In 2018, Vincent Munster and Ralph S. Baric infected Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) with Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1. [22] By 2020, the laboratory used Egyptian fruit bats as a model for DARPA PREEMPT self-spreading bat vaccines. [23] SARS-CoV-2 transmits efficiently in Egyptian fruit bats. [24]

SARS-CoV-2 publications

From 2018-20, Munster's lab was working on coronavirus cell entry. [25] In 2020, Munster's lab had identified the cell entry of SARS-CoV-2. [26] Kristian G. Andersen replied, "It’s unbelievably fast, almost too fast to imagine." [27] In February 2020, electron microscope images of SARS-CoV-2 were collected at RML. [28]

References

  1. 1 2 "Rocky Mountain Laboratories Overview, NIAID, NIH". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  2. "Heinz Feldmann, M.D., Ph.D., Laboratory of Virology". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  3. "Laboratory of Bacteriology". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  4. "Bruce W. Chesebro, M.D., Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, NIAID, NIH". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  5. 1 2 "Rocky Mountain Laboratories". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  6. 1 2 3 Hettrick, Gary R. (Winter 2012). "Vaccine Production in the Bitterroot Valley during World War II: How Rocky Mountain Laboratory Protected American Forces from Yellow Fever". Montana The Magazine of Western History. 62 (4): 47–59. JSTOR   24414669.
  7. 1 2 "Dr. Marshall Bloom Oral History". niaid.nih.gov. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  8. Honey (2009). "Rocky Mountain Labs: NIAID's Montana campus". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 119 (2): 240. doi:10.1172/jci38528. PMC   2631311 . PMID   19244628.
  9. Tsuda, Y. (2011). "A Replicating Cytomegalovirus-Based Vaccine Encoding a Single Ebola Virus Nucleoprotein CTL Epitope Confers Protection against Ebola Virus". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 5 (8): e1275. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001275 . PMC   3153429 . PMID   21858240.
  10. "DARPA PREEMPT program". darpa.mil. Retrieved 19 Feb 2019.
  11. Warzel (7 May 2020). "Is the Cure for Covid in the Rocky Mountains?". The New York Times . Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  12. "RML to host presentation on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases". ravallirepublic.com. Retrieved 2019-10-19.
  13. Harrington, L. (2021). "Wild American mink (Neovison vison) may pose a COVID-19 threat". Front Ecol Environ. 19 (5): 266–267. Bibcode:2021FrEE...19..266H. doi:10.1002/fee.2344. PMC   8207089 . PMID   34149325.
  14. Munnink, B. (2020). "Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 on mink farms between humans and mink and back to humans". Science. 371 (6525): 172–177. doi:10.1126/science.abe5901. PMC   7857398 . PMID   33172935.
  15. de Wit, E. (2011). "Nipah virus transmission in a hamster model". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 5 (12): e1432. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001432 . PMC   3236726 . PMID   22180802.
  16. Yinda, C. (9 Jan 2024). "Airborne transmission efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 in Syrian hamsters is not influenced by environmental conditions". Nature. 2 (1) 2. doi:10.1038/s44298-023-00011-3. PMC   11702665 . PMID   40295780.
  17. Williamson, Brandi N.; Meade-White, Kimberly; Boardman, Kristin; Schulz, Jonathan E.; Telford, Carson T.; Figueroa Acosta, Dania M.; Bushmaker, Trenton; Fischer, Robert J.; Rosenke, Kyle; Feldmann, Heinz (2021). "Continuing Orthohantavirus Circulation in Deer Mice in Western Montana". Viruses. 13 (6): 1006. doi: 10.3390/v13061006 . PMC   8226622 . PMID   34072112.
  18. Nuismer, S. (21 September 2020). "Bayesian estimation of Lassa virus epidemiological parameters: Implications for spillover prevention using wildlife vaccination". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 14 (9): e0007920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0007920 . PMC   7529244 . PMID   32956349.
  19. Scudellari, Megan (14 November 2016). "Journal Club: Can transmissible vaccines have a major role in eradicating disease?". doi:10.1073/journal-club.2387 (inactive 1 July 2025).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
  20. Griffin, B. (14 June 2021). "SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission in the North American deer mouse". Nature. 12 (1) 3612. Bibcode:2021NatCo..12.3612G. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23848-9. PMC   8203675 . PMID   34127676.
  21. Fagre, A. (21 May 2021). "SSARS-CoV-2 infection, neuropathogenesis and transmission among deer mice: Implications for spillback to New World rodents". PLOS Pathogens. 17 (5): e1009585. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009585 . PMC   8168874 . PMID   34010360.
  22. Van Doremalen, N. (19 Dec 2018). "SARS-Like Coronavirus WIV1-CoV Does Not Replicate in Egyptian Fruit Bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus)". Viruses. 10 (12): 727. doi: 10.3390/v10120727 . PMC   6316779 . PMID   30572566.
  23. Suryanarayanan (21 January 2021). "Colorado State University documents on bat pathogen research". usrtk.org. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
  24. Schlottau, K. (September 2020). "SARS-CoV-2 in fruit bats, ferrets, pigs, and chickens: an experimental transmission study". Lancet. 1 (5): e218 –e225. doi:10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30089-6. PMC   7340389 . PMID   32838346.
  25. Letko (14 November 2024). "Studying Coronavirus Cell Entry with Functional Viromics". nih.gov. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  26. Letko, Michael; Marzi, Andrea; Munster, Vincent (2020). "Functional assessment of cell entry and receptor usage for SARS-CoV-2 and other lineage B betacoronaviruses". Nature Microbiology. 5 (4): 562–569. doi:10.1038/s41564-020-0688-y. PMC   7095430 . PMID   32094589.
  27. Molteni. "Can a Database of Animal Viruses Help Predict the Next Pandemic?". wired.com. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
  28. Missoulian. "Hamilton lab releases new images of coronavirus". missoulian.com. Retrieved 2020-02-12.

46°14′15″N114°09′35″W / 46.23737°N 114.15985°W / 46.23737; -114.15985