IAEA New Lab Facility to Tackle Health, Food and Climate Change Challenges

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, and the Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Alexander Schallenberg, officially opened the new Yukiya Amano Laboratory Facility.

It aims to assist countries to fight and prevent transboundary animal and zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 and to tackle challenges related to climate change and food safety.

The opening ceremony took place on 5th June at the IAEA Seibersdorf site outside Vienna.

The new building will house three of the five laboratories run jointly by the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): the Animal Production and Health Laboratory, the Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory and the Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Laboratory.

The purpose-built infrastructure will house cutting-edge equipment, including mass spectrometers and next-generation gene sequencing platforms, and enhance the IAEA’s capacity for collaborative research and for the provision of training opportunities to scientists in its Member States.