Past events & courses

Management of risks related to activities with hazardous biological material, be it research, development, production or diagnostics, requires risk assessment at various stages of the activity. To begin with, the hazards of the various biological materials used need to be estimated. Techniques of genetic engineering allow for significant reconstruction of organisms involving synthetic DNA and RNA, viral vectors, plasmids and inserts from all sorts of different organisms. 

This introductory course is for  safety professionals or managers having +5 years of professional experience. In this highly interactive course attendees will systematically gain insight in the principles of behavior based safety and gradually learn to set up the foundations of a behavior based safety management system. Attendees will receive some practical guidance on how to promote safe behavior.

The vast majority of biologists enter the field because they have a passion to make the world better by understanding organisms and the systems they live in.  We dream of improving the world's health through combatting disease, improving nutrition and protecting species and the environment.

Building new containment facilities or revamping existing biological laboratories is generally an important step in the development of an organization. It is also a challenge for all those involved in the project, including the laboratory users and the biorisk management advisor.

The purpose of biosafety is to prevent exposure to biological agent especially that which leads to infection. It is therefore important to know the causes and circumstances in which laboratory acquired infections occur in clinical, veterinary and research work and the lessons learned from those.

Biocontainment constitutes the combination of engineering controls and infrastructure that support and complement the biosafety protocols adopted in biocontainment laboratories.

The pre-conference course on "Animal facility operations" aims at biosafety professionals that are or will be involved in activities with small and/or large animals at different containment level. The main driver of the course is the question how the interaction between animal, pathogen and experimental set-up affects biosafety and biosecurity.

This 1.5 day course aims at providing researchers, biosafety professionals and facility managers a practical insight into the assessment of risk, design, operation and management of contained use activities in plant growth and plant pathogen facilities. This includes work with GMOs (plants, (non-)pathogenic micro-organisms, invertebrates) as well as with (quarantine) pests and diseases.

Recent breaches of biosafety and biosecurity have emphasised that management failure is normally the root cause of accidents and incidents with biological agents and toxins. Implementation of a systematic biorisk management system, e.g. adopting the CWA 15793 can help organisations manage these risks.