TULSA, Okla. (AP) A consortium led by Oklahoma State University hopes to land for the state a 450 million dollar research center for the federal Department of Homeland Security.

Twenty-nine bids originally were made for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility, and earlier this year, that number was trimmed to 14 after the first round of the selection process.

A list of three to five finalists for the facility is expected to be released in June.

Those who back the Oklahoma bid say winning the competition for the facility will be difficult, but that the state is one of the top contenders.

The proposal would place the facility at a 67-hundred-acre U-S Agriculture Department research laboratory west of El Reno.

Among Oklahoma universities, O-S-U, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa and Langston University are involved in the bid.

The state’s two largest private research organizations, the Noble Foundation and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, also are part of the consortium.