Michigan State University will announce a major national center using a $10 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to keep water safe from biological attacks.

A press conference introducing the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment, funded equally by the EPA and the DHS, will be at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at the Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health.

Among those expected at the event are MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon; U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton; Ian Gray, MSU vice president for research and graduate studies; Joan Rose, Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research; Mel Bernstein, director of university programs for the Department of Homeland Security; and Andy Avel, director of the EPA National Center for Homeland Security Research.

Partners include the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University, the University of California-Berkeley, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona.

The announcement will be in Room 101 of the diagnostic center, located at 4125 Beaumont Road south of the MSU campus.