FORT DETRICK, Md. -- Army researchers at Fort Detrick are fast at work growing batches of COVID-19 to help test treatment options and eventually find a coronavirus vaccine.
"They take some of the virus and put it onto cells," Dr. Kathleen Gibson, a core laboratory services division chief at the U.S. Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases [USAMRIID], explained through a triple-glass window as Army researchers wearing protective gear worked with the deadly virus. "They look for the virus that will actually kill portions of the cells and they'll count those killed portions."
These are the same army scientists who helped develop vaccines for anthrax, the plague and Ebola. Now, they have been working double shifts growing large amounts of the COVID-19 virus at this sprawling lab complex.