Monday, May 12, 2025
5/12/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - Organization Address: 343 Thornall Street, Edison, NJ 08837-2206 Project Address: 340 Kingsland Street, Nutley, NJ 07110-1150 Project Director Name: David S. Perlin, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer & EVP, HMH Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) Contact Phone Number: 201-880-3101 Email Address: david.perlin@hmh-cdi.org Website Address: https://hmh-cdi.org/ List all grant program funds requested in the application, if applicable: $1 million Brief description of the proposed project: Brief description of the proposed project: Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) is expanding its state-of-the-art Biosafety Level-3 (BSL-3) facilities at its Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) to meet the growing research needs at HMH, regional research institutions, and industrial partners such as Merck, Pfizer, Regeneron, and Quest. While BSL-3 level labs are the standard for researchers to work on microbes and infectious agents that, through inhalation, can cause serious or deadly disease, there is currently only one other BSL-3 facility in the entire state of New Jersey (at Rutgers University). To put this in context, New York State has twice the population of New Jersey but has 8 times the number of BSL-3 labs as New Jersey. HMH’s Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is an academic-based entrepreneurial center that is dedicated to preventing, reducing, and curing acute and chronic diseases related to cancer, infectious diseases, and other life-threatening and debilitating conditions. However, its current BSL-3 facility is not large enough to provide for the rapid development of countermeasures against high-threat pathogens. To enable numerous, urgent translational projects in countermeasure development (drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics), the CDI’s is expanding its Biosafety Level-3 facility by 1,900 square feet. There are currently a large number of ongoing research projects at the CDI that depend on the availability of more BSL-3 lab space. In addition to SARS-CoV- 2, HMH has existing programs involving other coronaviruses, tuberculosis, multidrug resistant bacterial, and fungal pathogens. The CDI also has important strategic partnerships with the private sector who are actively collaborating to develop countermeasures against high-threat pathogens. The expanded BSL-3 space will enable the CDI to continue to grow these strategic partnerships.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).