The Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) will open in 2015 and offer high-security lab space for scientists to study dangerous diseases and provide early warning of potential outbreaks. (Read about the global war on disease.)

The facility, funded by the United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, will have the additional benefit of giving stable employment to scientists who might otherwise be tempted to sell their high-level and potentially destructive knowledge to hostile groups, said Lt. Col. Charles Carlton, director of the DTRA offices in Kazakhstan.

The facility will also be a secure place to archive existing disease strains. The threat of theft is real: In 2002, for example, authorities arrested a man