Biosafety Month
October is Biosafety and Biosecurity Month
Started in 2014 by the National Institutes of Health, the National Biosafety and Biosecurity Month is a period during which institutions are encouraged to reinforce their attention to biosafety and biosecurity practices, policies, and procedures. Join the Institutional Biosafety Committee Program and Environmental Health and Safety Biosafety group in celebrating Virginia Tech's accomplishments in biosafety and biosecurity.
2024 Biosafety and Biosecurity Day
The Virginia Tech Institutional Biosafety Committee program (IBCP) and Environmental Health and Safety Biosafety group EHS-BSG) will be hosting the annual event at the Fralin Hall atrium on Oct. 23 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Attendees will be able to meet the IBCP and EHS-BSG staff, collect swag, sign-up for raffle prizes, participate in short activities (trivia, photo booth, crafts, and more), and participate in a biosecurity-themed escape room. See below for details to register for the escape room challenge.
See below for details, including links to register for the escape room and to download the laboratory challenge card, as well as photos from our 2023 event.
Tips of the Week
Biosecurity focuses on protecting biological agents from theft, loss, or misuse. Laboratory biosecurity refers to the protection, control of, and accountability for biological agents and toxins, and critical relevant biological materials and information within laboratories to prevent unauthorized possession, loss, theft, misuse, diversion, and intentional release.
- Physical Protection: This involves the protection of the actual building housing your lab, including things such as locks on doors, perimeter security, and practices limiting entry into the most sensitive areas of your lab such as areas where infectious agents are stored and animals housing.
- Personnel Suitability/Reliability: These practices include ID badges for staff entering the lab spaces, limiting access to visitors and escorting visitors at all times, and biosecurity training for staff. Some experiments and agents may require that staff undergo criminal background checks
- Pathogen Accountability: These practices include regular inventory checks, inventory requirements for transfers within and outside your laboratory, inactivation and disposal of cultures after they’ve been used, tracking of internal possession and proper labeling of substances.
Risk Groups and Biosafety Levels
What is a risk group, and how does it differ from a biosafety level?
Risk Groups
- The risk group refers to the risks associated with a specific agent to a healthy, adult, human.
- The risk group alone does not describe the specific biosafety level that will need to be used to perform experiments with the organism. You will also need to review the specific experiments and procedures being performed with the organism to determine the appropriate biosafety level required to safely work with the organism.
- There are 4 risk group designations. Risk Group 1 (RG1) is the lowest risk group, and Risk Group 4 (RG4) is the highest.
Table describing how to assign a risk group designation to an agent.
Biosafety Level (BSL)
- Physical containment is designated by a biosafety level (BSL). The level is a description of the lab practices/techniques, safety equipment, lab facility design, and training requirements needed to safely perform specific experiments and biohazards in a specific space.
- The biosafety level is not a designation, or synonym, for the organism(s) being used.
- There are 4 biosafety levels. Biosafety level (BSL-1) is the lowest, and Biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) is the highest.
Prior to beginning a new project, experiment, or a change in the scope of your research, you should
- Conduct a new risk/hazard assessment
- Review the lab space(s) and containment equipment to confirm that the necessary equipment is available and any required certificaitons are up to date
- Review the PPE requirements and confirm that the appropriate PPE is available
- Review standard operating procedures and edit them to include new procedures
- Review training requirements and training records of personnel to confirm that personnel are prepared to perform the procedures and to handle the agents being used
2024 Activities
September through October 2024
Partcipate in the Biosafety and Biosecurity Month lab challenge. This is a lab group activity challenge for a chance to win the annual traveling Biosafety and Biosecurtity Month Lab Challenge Trophy. See below for details.
Sign-up now to participate in this unique biosecurity-themed escape room-type challenge. If spaces are still available, you can sign up for the escape room during the event at the main table. Please note that no doors will be locked during the challenge.
The challenge has a 30-minute time limit. Seven individuals can sign up for each time slot. If registering for a group, sign up each person separately to reserve all of those spots.
Participants will need to find missing data and identify the culprit. A scientist has stolen a novel genetic sequence and plans to cause a blackout in the lab to escape with the sequence to sell it in the next 30 minutes. You and your team are part of a special lab safety agency that has arrived to save the sequence and the lab from disaster. Work together to find the hidden sequence and to identify and catch the scientist before they run away.
If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accomodation, please contact Regina Allen at 540-231-1910, or email regina1@vt.edu, during regular business hours at least 10 days prior to the event.
Participate in this lab group challenge for a chance to win the traveling Biosafety and Biosecurity Lab Challenge Trophy for 2024
Laboratories are encouraged to participate in the lab challenge each year. The challenge is run from September through October. The laboratory group that completes the most acitivities/questions in the challenge card will win the trophy. In the event of a tie, the winner will be chosen by a random drawing between the tied lab groups.
2024 Participation Instructions
- Download a copy of the challenge card.
- Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31, fill in the dates and responses for the activities/questions listed in each box of the card. The objective is to complete as many of the listed activities/questions as possible. You do not need to complete the entire challenge card to submit your entry.
- As your lab completes activities/questions listed in the card, add the date or response into that box.
Submission Information
Submit your challenge card to regina1@vt.edu by 5 p.m. on Nov. 8. Only one card per laboratory group will be accepted. If multiple entries are submitted, the first submission will be used as the official entry.
The trophy will be awarded to the lab group that completes the most activities/questions listed on the card. In the event of a tie, the winner will be chosen through a random drawing between that lab groups that were tied.
Announcement of the Trophy Winner
The winner of the trophy will be notified by Nov. 15. Continue checking this page for more information.
The Biosafety and Biosecurity Day activity tables included a visit from the HokieBird, information from the IBC Program and EHS-BG staff, a trivia challenge, a glove doffing Glo Germ challenge, and even a build-your-own air plant beaker terrarium.
Below are photos from the various activities and the inaugral trophy winners!
For the biosafety themed escape room challenge, participants had 30 minutes to respond to a biohazardous spill and find an antidote to save everyone in the lab from becoming a zombie.
Some groups found the antidote and escaped. Although some groups did not escape and the zombie appeared - attendees had fun trying to solve the clues to find the antidote.
Photo by Travis Williams, Virginia Tech
