U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) is the U.S Army's main institution and facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare. It is located on Fort Detrick, Maryland and is a subordinate lab of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), headquartered on the same installation.

USAMRIID is the only U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory equipped to study highly hazardous viruses at Biosafety Level 4 within positive pressure personnel suits. USAMRIID employs both military and civilian scientists as well as highly specialized support personnel, totaling around 800 people.

Cold War
In the 1950s and '60s, USAMRIID and its predecessor unit pioneered unique, state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities which it continues to maintain and upgrade. Investigators at its facilities frequently collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and major biomedical and academic centers worldwide.

USAMRIID traces its institutional lineage to the early 1950s, when Lt. Col. Abram S. Benenson was appointed as medical liaison officer to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (BWL) at Camp (later Fort) Detrick to oversee biomedical defensive problems.

In 1961, Col. Dan Crozier assumed command of the AMU. Modern principles of biosafety and biocontainment were pioneered at Fort Detrick throughout the 1960s by a number of scientists led by Arnold G. Wedum.

By the late 1970s, in addition to the work on Coxiella burnetii and other rickettsiae, research priorities had expanded to include the development of vaccines and therapeutics against Argentine, Korean and Bolivian hemorrhagic fevers, Lassa fever and other exotic diseases that could pose potential BW threats. In 1978, the Institute assisted with humanitarian efforts in Egypt when a severe outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) occurred there for the first time.

The 1980s saw the establishment of a new program to improve the existing anthrax vaccine, and to develop new information on the pathophysiology of weaponized anthrax disease. This came in response to the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak of 1979.

By 1988, USAMRIID began to come under close scrutiny by several Congressional committees. The Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, chaired by Senator Carl Levin, issued a report quite critical in the DoD's management of biological safety issues in the CBW programs.

While investigating an outbreak of simian hemorrhagic fever (SHF) in 1989, USAMRIID electron microscopist Thomas Geisbert discovered filoviruses similar in appearance to Ebola in tissue samples taken from a crab-eating macaque imported from the Philippines to the Hazleton Laboratories in Reston, Virginia.

During the period of Desert Shield and Desert Storm (1990–91) USAMRIID provided the DoD with expert advice and products (vaccines and drugs) to ensure an effective medical response if a medical defense were required. USAMRIID scientists trained and equipped six special laboratory teams for rapid identification of potential BW agents, which fortunately never appeared. Following the conflict, USAMRIID physicians and engineers were key members of a United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) Inspection Team that evaluated the BW capabilities in Iraq during the 1990s.

Source

 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Medical_Research_Institute_of_Infectious_Diseases#History