Yes.
Colorado State University is building a breeding and research center on its Foothills Campus to study bats and their response to infectious disease. The building, funded by a $6.7 million National Institute of Health grant, is scheduled to be completed by 2025.
The building’s primary function will be to breed “virus-free, disease-free bats” that will be used by CSU researchers and also be sent to other universities and government agencies, the university said.
It will also house some biosafety level 2 research. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that could involve microbes that pose “moderate hazards,” are not foreign and are associated with diseases of “varying severity” such as staphylococcus.
CSU officials stated that the university “has no plans to conduct gain-of-function infectious disease research with bats that could increase the transmission of a virus or other pathogens to humans.”
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