TheLaboratory Response Network (LRN) is a collaborative effort within the US federal government involving theAssociation of Public Health Laboratories and theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most state public health laboratories participate as reference laboratories (formerly level B/C) of the LRN. These facilities support hundreds of sentinel (formerly level A) laboratories in local hospitals throughout the United States and can provide sophisticated confirmatory diagnosis and typing ofbiological agents that may be used in abioterrorist attack or other bio-agent incident. The LRN was established in 1999.
The LRN consists of a loose network of government labs at three levels:[1]
These laboratories, found in many hospitals and local public health facilities, have the ability to rule out specific bioterrorism threat agents, to handle specimens safely, and to forward specimens to higher-level labs within the network.
These laboratories (more than 100), typically found atstate health departments and at military, veterinary, agricultural, and water-testing facilities, can rule on the presence of the various biological threat agents. They can useBSL-3 practices and can often conductnucleic acid amplification andmolecular typing studies.
These laboratories, including those at CDC andU.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), can useBSL-4 practices and serve as the final authority in the evaluation of potential bioterrorism specimens. They provide specialized reagents to lower level laboratories and have the ability to bank specimens, perform serotyping, and detectgenetic recombinants andchimeras.