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FAIRBANKS - A new $32 million state virology laboratory in Fairbanks is helping health officials track disease in Alaska.

Herpes, HIV, rabies and most recently, swine flu, are among diseases scientists at the lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have helped identify.

The facility has been in use for months but was to be formally dedicated Monday.

The lab is the most modern in Alaska, said manager Terry Schmidt.

The building is behind the university's Museum of the North. At 29,000 square feet, the lab is about twice the size of the old laboratory.

The equipment inside is a considerable upgrade.

The lab's former autoclave, a device used to sterilize equipment, was like a manual typewriter in the age of laptop computers, Schmidt said.

"I got so tired of trying to fix that thing," he said. "I said if it broke again, we'd find some other way."

Storage was another issue at the old laboratory, situated in a cluster of rooms in the UAF Arctic Health Research Building.

"We had stuff sprinkled all throughout the building," Schmidt said.

A new necropsy room has a ventilation system so scientists no longer have to tolerate the stench of a decomposing dog head.

A complex air handling system, capable of filtering out bacteria and viruses, occupies the building's entire top floor.

Automated molecular extractors, worth $65,000 each, rip apart viruses and isolate genetic material. The work previously was done by hand. A task that took three hours now takes about 45 minutes, Schmidt said.

"Without it, we'd already be buried in specimens," he said. "We'd be overwhelmed. There would be less known about what was going around."

The former laboratory had few windows and the 16 workers sometimes felt like they were in a box.

"It is so much better," said lab technician Annie Huddy said. "It's light. It's pretty. It's clean."

The lab also has a special room where all who enter must have FBI clearance. The room lets scientists study diseases such as smallpox, labeled by the World Health Organization as one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity. Smallpox was eradicated in the late 1970s, but samples were kept and it emerged as a bioterrorism concern in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"The fire department can't even get in here," Schmidt said of the secured room.

Schmidt helped design the lab, drawing ideas from two state laboratories in Anchorage.

The building was constructed by Fairbanks-based Ghemm Co.