On Apr. 5, 2023, Aberdeen Proving Ground South, formerly known as Edgewood, celebrated the opening of the Department of Defenseﾒs new Public Health Laboratory at Building E2850. The lab will support all scientific and most logistic operations for Defense Centers for Public Health-Aberdeen scientists and workers.

The Army Corps of Engineers supervised construction of the 280,000-square-foot laboratory building, which took eight years to complete and cost around $248 million. It is comprised of 67 individual lab spaces that will serve most of the Center’s directorates including Environmental Health Sciences and Engineering, Occupational Health Sciences, Laboratory Sciences, and Toxicology. These lab spaces feature mobile casework and are tailorable to future public health missions, including another pandemic response. The building also includes several highly specialized lab spaces including an insectary for entomological studies and two anechoic chambers for radio frequency experiments.

The new DCPH-A lab traces its lineage back more than 80 years to the Army Industrial Hygiene Laboratory, which was established at the beginning of World War II under the direct jurisdiction of the Army surgeon general. Originally located at the prestigious Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, this early laboratory had a staff of just three employees and an annual budget of only $3,000.