A site near Manhattan, Kan., and affiliated with Kansas State University will house the nation’s most sensitive animal-disease laboratory, according to several news reports. The lab will become the federal government’s leading research center on diseases such as anthrax, which can affect human beings as well as livestock.

The Department of Homeland Security will announce the pick by the end of this week, the Associated Press reported. The choice reverses a decision process that, earlier this year, appeared to be leaning toward a site in Mississippi that was deemed unsuitable by many scientists.

Announcing the pick will not make it final. There will be a 30-day period for public comments, and the decision could face legal challenges from Mississippi and other losing states.

The new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, to be built at a cost of about $500-million, landed in Kansas because of expertise at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and its Biosecurity Research Institute, according to the Kansas City Star. The region also has a high concentration of companies making medicine, food, and other products for livestock, providing a skilled work force that can be tapped by the new facility.

Also key was a decision by the Kansas Legislature to appropriate $105-million to build roads for the new facility and $93-million to support related research at Kansas State’s biosecurity institute.

Pathogens to be studied at the new lab include not just anthrax but swine fever, the Hendra and Nipah viruses, and foot-and-mouth disease. The facility will try to develop vaccines and medicine that protect the public and livestock from future disease outbreaks. The lab is intended to replace an aging facility on Plum Island, off New York’s Long Island. —Josh Fischman