It was located next to Central Prison, from which "ingredients" were taken from among the death row inmates. After Edward makes it into the heart of Lab 5 and encounters the Slicer Brothers and Lust and Envy, the building's explosives are activated, destroying all evidence of the immoral experimentation that had gone on within. It is later revealed that all the scientists involved with Laboratory 5 had disappeared mysteriously just days before its destruction, and implied that the they had been used as ingredients for a Philosopher's Stone themselves. Laboratory 5 was also said to have been under the jurisdiction of Brigadier General Basque Grand, who had already been murdered by Scar by the time the Elrics discovered it.