HCU 2035
New High Containment Unit 2035; Animal Sciences research facility
HCU 2035 is essential for safeguarding animal and public health, supporting outbreak response, protecting exports, enabling research, and fulfilling legal duties on zoonoses. The facility provides secure laboratories and animal housing for safe work with infectious pathogens (human biosafety level 3 (hBSL-3); veterinary level 4(vBSL-4)), including large livestock. It enables prevention, control, and eradication of animal diseases through diagnostics, research, and consultancy. As the only facility of its kind in the Netherlands, the current HCU and HCU 2035 are critical national infrastructure.
Infrastructure and User Services
The research facility comprises (both current HCU and HCU 2035) multiple specialized units, collectively covering the full spectrum of animal disease science, focusing primarily on livestock health, while also addressing other animal species relevant to public and animal health. It supports high-tech and fundamental research, diagnostics and disease confirmation or exclusion, as well as animal research.
The facility is specifically designed to prevent any release of infectious agents into the environment. It enables work with highly contagious pathogens at biosafety levels up to human hBSL-3 and veterinary vBSL-4, including rabies, foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, and avian influenza. The facility also serves as the national reference laboratory for notifiable animal diseases.
Spanning over 10,000 m², the facility includes diverse laboratory and animal spaces, such as hBSL-3 labs and areas suitable for genetically modified organisms up to DM level 3. The animal rooms range from small rodent units to large-scale (>250 m²) spaces for transmission experiments with cattle under vBSL-4 conditions. Uniquely, the facility houses 10 animal rooms rated at vBSL-3 and vBSL-4 for zoonotic research involving large animals. A lot of data is being created and used to make animal models.
To support these complex functions, the facility is equipped with an extensive array of advanced technical systems, including HVAC, HEPA filtration, autoclaves, tissue digesters, rendering units, RO water systems, power backup, wastewater treatment, and other essential decontamination technologies.
Examples/description of the type of research
The facility enables research focused on contagious veterinary diseases, including those with zoonotic potential, for which both the current HCU and the future HCU 2035 are specifically designed. This research is uniquely combined with studies in livestock animals, making the facility one of a kind in the Netherlands.
Research efforts are committed to the development and use of animal models, as well as to the principles of reduction, refinement, and replacement (3Rs). This includes innovative approaches such as sensor technologies, ex vivo models (for example organoids and air liquid interface cultures), immunology, pathology, vector transmission studies, and research on novel vaccines and disease prevention. The facility plays a key role in testing and evaluating vaccines and other disease control strategies.
The facility is essential in times of emerging disease crises, providing critical support to both the agricultural sector and the government. It is also part of the national laboratory network for terrorist attacks (“Landelijk Laboratorium Netwerk terroristische aanslagen”), where it serves to test biological threat suspicions under high containment conditions.
Additionally, the facility is used for diagnostics during animal disease outbreaks, including foot and mouth disease, avian influenza, and African swine fever. It conducts laboratory analyses to identify pathogens and functions as the national reference laboratory for notifiable animal diseases.
How to access the infrastructure
Scientists from WUR have direct access to the facility, while researchers from other universities, institutes, and private companies also make use of the infrastructure for collaborative or contract-based research. Access is arranged through formal projects and agreements, and is subject to the strict access and quarantine regulations of both the current HCU and the future HCU 2035.