On May 11-12, the BCU team traveled to Emory University to participate in the inaugural meeting of the National Ebola Training and Education Center (NETEC). The team met with representatives from the other eight regional Ebola and Other Special Pathogens Treatment Centers and participated in workshops designed to strengthen our current training and preparedness protocols in key topic areas including lab safety, infection control, waste management, staff training and drill preparation. Partners from the DOD, CDC, ASPR and the FDA were also on hand to discuss ways in which the regional centers can strengthen current research and innovation efforts for the care of patients with highly infectious diseases. It was wonderful to meet so many talented individuals who share in our vision to be prepared to care for high consequence pathogens. Check out the NETEC website for more information: http://netec.org.

After the NETEC conference, Brian and Mallory headed out to the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Francisco to conduct a morning seminar on the lessons learned from building the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit. Here is a link to a manuscript recently published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society that describes the process in detail (http://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.ezp.welch.jhmi.edu/pubmed/?term=27057583). 

We hope that everyone is having a great spring and gearing up for the summer!

-Brian Garibaldi, Associate Director of the BCU