The Department of Homeland Security's National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center joins the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, built in the late 1960s, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases's Integrated Research Facility, currently under construction.

The ground-breaking ceremony on a rain-sodden field marks a "key milestone in the homeland security partnership," said Dr. Maureen McCarthy, director of Transition for Science and Technology for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "For if we are gathered to acknowledge anything of national significance or historical importance it is the interagency nature of this place and the unprecedented synergy at play here that have already begun to take us forward from science to security."

The NBACC will have about 160,000 square feet of research and office space and will employ 120 staff members. It will house two centers. Defining characteristics of biothreat agents and conducting biodefense risk assessments will fall to staff in the Biological Threat Characterization Center. The National Bioforensic Analysis Center will be the nation's lead facility for conducting and facilitating technical forensic analysis of materials found after a biological attack, like the anthrax mail incidents in 2001.

"The ones that the president called 'the evil ones' after that vicious attack of 9-11 still have malignant intent in mind. They are powerful, they are committed, they are certain that the mission ahead of them to do the evil deeds that they plan is justified and is something that they are working on," said Deputy Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Michael P. Jackson at the ceremony. "We cannot let an adversary like that attack this country without building the types of assets that are going to grow, literally, from the ground behind us."

Construction of the NBACC should take about two years. Officials at Detrick hope to break ground for a new USAMRIID as construction wraps up on the NBACC.

"We see the beginning of the construction on the NBACC as a positive sign for breaking ground for a new U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRIID, sometime in the next two years," said Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, commanding general U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and Fort Detrick.

The Army institute, the general said, is a pioneer in medical biodefense research and is the cornerstone of the NIBC. Since the Department of Homeland Security assumed the lab analysis responsibility for biologic agents, NBACC staff has occupied office and lab space at USAMRIID so they could begin their mission before their building went up.

Each speaker at the ceremony remarked on the interagency collaboration the campus has fostered. To date, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services have partnered to create the National Interagency Biodefense Campus.

"It's been gratifying to see the degree of cooperation and the absence of parochialism among agency partners," Schoomaker said.

Because of the interagency cooperation, the general said he hopes the campus will serve as a 21st century example of "great minds and many dedicated public servants coming together to do great things for the nation" and will foster the kind of discussions and discoveries that changed science. He used as an example Francis Crick and James Watson, the fathers of DNA, who used to discuss their work in a local tea shop.

At the ceremony's close, Frederick County Commissioner Mike Cady presented to Jackson a certificate signed by the five county commissioners congratulating the NBACC on its groundbreaking.

"We value Fort Detrick as a neighbor. We consider your work here to be critical to the security of our nation. We are proud to have you among our midst, and we stand ready to cooperate with you whenever and however we as a county government can do so," Cady said.