Built in 1954, Battelle’s West Jefferson facility housed the first scale nuclear reactor ever owned by a private organization. Today, it is home to Medical Research and Evaluation Facility (MREF), which specializes in the design and execution of research to develop medical countermeasures against highly toxic materials and pathogenic organisms, and Battelle’s High Energy Research Laboratory Area (HERLA), a center devoted to research, development, testing, and evaluation in the science and technology surrounding energetics and explosives. West Jefferson also contains the Pipeline Research Facility, an exceptional resource for hazardous liquid and natural gas pipeline companies, and the Gasification Laboratory.