The Pirbright Institute recently opened the doors to its new Plowright building as part of the phase one campus redevelopment. Plowright houses the BBSRC National Virology Centre which is a state-of-the-art high containment negative pressure laboratory.
Containment level 3 and 4 biosafety laboratories have been extensively included throughout the development, all fitted with over 2,000 metres of Cableflow extruded aluminium CL3+ dado and laboratory bench trunking systems.
Cableflow products were ultimately selected as a proven best option ahead of upvc or steel dado trunking systems which cannot withstand the harshness and regularity of the containment level biodecontamination requirements over life expectancy. Contractor SES and the Pirbright Institute independently tested the Cableflow products resilience to the rigours of fumigation and cleaning agitants including vapourised hydrogen peroxide (VHP) and formalin (Formaldehyde) gassing, amongst others.
The Plowright Building will be used by the Institute’s three scientific programmes for the purposes of in-vitro research into virus diseases of livestock which ultimately safeguards the life of animals and benefits global food safety. The laboratory is 14,000m2 in size and can accommodate more than 150 operational scientists and support staff.
