India will set up its first high-security facility for handling and doing research with highly infectious organisms that cause diseases in humans.

The US$25-million biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) lab is to be established on a 2-hectare site in Hyderabad, about 3 kilometres from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB). The centre has been given responsibility for setting up the new lab as a national facility.

India already has a BSL-4 lab for animal pathogens in Bhopal, and only last month validated and cleared BSL-3-level labs at five institutions. Details of containment facilities at the defence department's laboratory in Gwalior are not available.

Lalji Singh, director of the CCMB, says the new lab will not do any classified defence work: ?The main objective of our facility would be to carry out basic research on the biology of lethal and highly infectious microorganisms.?