In the book "The Andromeda Strain", what is Project Wildfire?

Project Wildfire is the brainchild of scientist Jeremy Stone. Dr. Stone is a brilliant, ambitious, Nobel Prize-winning scientist, who employs his political contacts and academic clout to secure government sponsorship of his project. The underground laboratory and project protocols are developed in accordance with his design. Stone obtains top-secret authorization for Wildfire, which extends so far as to allow its team scientists to arrest civilians to maintain project secrecy. The lab is a fortress designed to contain any conceivable kind of alien disease, be it gaseous, viral, bacterial or fungal.