RML evolved as a result of research on
Rocky Mountain spotted fever that began around 1900, in the
Bitterroot Valley. A deadly disease of unknown origin plagued early settlers of the valley. It was known locally as "black measles" because of its severe, dark rash. Montana researchers were working in the area in makeshift cabins and tents. In 1909, Dr.
Howard Taylor Ricketts, while working in the area, isolated
Rickettsia rickettsii as the Gram-negative bacterium that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
H. R. Cox and Gordon Davis working at RML discovered that
Coxiella burnetii was the causative agent of Q fever. During
World War II, the
United States Public Health Service used the laboratory to manufacture
Yellow fever vaccine. When the human serum–base vaccine caused an outbreak of
Hepatitis B that infected more than 350,000 U.S. soldiers, two researchers at the laboratory, Dr. Mason Hargett and Harry Burruss, developed an aqueous-base vaccine that combined distilled water with virus grown in chicken eggs. By the end of the war, the laboratory distributed more than 1 million doses of the improved yellow fever vaccine. In the post-war decades, the laboratory broadened its scope to study
chlamydia trachomatis and
transmissible spongiform encephalopathies including
scrapie,
mad cow disease, and
chronic wasting disease. In 1982, Dr.
Willy Burgdorfer discovered
Borrelia burgdorferi, the tick-borne bacterium that causes
Lyme disease. ==Post 9/11 and BSL-4 Facility==