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About IDRC

Colorado State University is among the world's leaders in researching West Nile Virus, drug-resistant Tuberculosis, Yellow Fever, Dengue, Hantavirus, Plague, Tularemia and other diseases. In 2007, Colorado State University opened a $30 million Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RMRBL) at the Judson M. Harper Research Complex on CSU’s Foothills Campus.  The new Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory complements similar infectious disease research already underway at the CDC facility and the USDA laboratory on the Foothills Campus as well as at the university's existing Bioenvironmental Research Building (BRB) and its Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory (AIDL).

Upon the opening of the RMRBL, the Vice President for Research named the Infectious Disease Research Center (IDRC) to include the RMRBL, Discovery Suites, Media Prep, BRB, BRB Expansion and the Research Innovation Center.  The Infectious Disease Research Center provides the university with improved facilities and state-of-the-art equipment to research ways to protect the United States from bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases such as Avian Influenza.  Researchers at the IDRC will investigate and develop new treatments and vaccines to protect against these agents.

The Center also houses the Rocky Mountain Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is a multi-disciplinary intellectual collaboration of researchers from Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The Regional Center of Excellence focuses on zoonotic emerging diseases, which are animal diseases that are transmissible to humans.

  • The initial $7.7 million Bioenvironmental Research Building was completed in 2000. Most of the funds for this project were university funds, and an additional $1 million was provided by a grant from National Institutes of Health.
  • The Bioenvironmental Research Building underwent an $8 million expansion to be completed the fall of 2008, funded with a $4 million award from the National Center for Research Resources, a division of the National Institutes of Health, and an additional $4 million from the university.
  • The construction of a Media Preparation area in the Bioenvironmental Research Building was completed in 2006. It was funded with $500,000 of university funds.
  • The Bioenvironmental Research Building Discovery Suite, which connects the BRB and the Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, was built with $3 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  • The construction of the $30 million Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory was funded with $26 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the remainder from the university. It was completed in December of 2007. The Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory was granted select agent status from the Centers for Disease Control in April of 2008, and was the first of the thirteen Regional Biocontainment Laboratories in the country to have this designation.
  • The Research Innovation Center will add an additional 60,000 square feet of BSL-2 space to the foothills campus and is set to open during the Summer of 2010.
Harper Research Complex