Obama Led an Effort To Build a Ukraine BioLab Handling Especially Dangerous Pathogens. Barack Obama spearheaded an agreement leading to the construction of biolabs handling especially dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
Originally posted on June 18th, 2010, the article Biolab Opens in Ukraine details how Obama, while serving as an Illinois Senator, helped negotiate a deal to build a level-3 bio-safety lab in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.
This laboratory was reconstructed and technically updated up to the BSL-3 level through a cooperative agreement between the United States Department of Defense and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine that started in 2005. The collaboration focuses on preventing the spread of technologies, pathogens, and knowledge that can be used in the development of biological weapons, the report continues.
The updated laboratory serves as Interim Central Reference Laboratory with a depozitarium (pathogen collection).
Among the viruses the lab studied were Ebola and viruses of pathogencity group II by using of virology, molecular, serologica and express methods.