Requirements for Work with Infectious Agents (Including Proliferating Select Agents)
at the UCHC.
If you work with infectious human pathogens (infectious agents) in your laboratory, you need to register your lab with the Connecticut State Department of Public Health. Get the
forms and checklists. Contact the
Biosafety Officer for questions. Currently, the highest
containment allowed at the UConn Health Center is BSL-2 enhanced. Higher level
risk group organisms/procedure combinations requiring higher containment are not
allowed. Work with Proliferating Select Agents is not allowed at the UConn Health Center.
Resources About Infectious Agents
- Risk Groups (RG) and Biosafety Levels (abbreviated "BSL" in the BMBL and "BL" in the NIH rDNA Guidelines). Infectious agents have been classified into Risk Groups (NIH
rDNA Guidelines criteria for these) based on their inherent disease potential in humans. Biosafety Levels (containment) are standardized “combinations of [protective] laboratory practices and
techniques, safety equipment and laboratory facilities” (BMBL p. 11). For a good explanation of Risk Groups, Containment Levels and
Risk Assessment see sections 2.1 through 2.3 of the Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines 3rd Ed. from the Canadian
Minister of Health. For good background on the hazards particular operations present see the
Laboratory Safety Monograph (supplement to the NIH rDNA
Guidelines).
- Determining RGs for a given biological agent usually goes by what information can be found about that agent. Sometimes recommendations are given as BSLs. The US may not have classified an agent
but maybe the Canadians have or maybe someone else. We typically choose the best information we can find. Here are some places to look:
- ABSA risk group lists.
- CDC/NIH’s Guideline, Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL), 4th Ed., 1999, has Agent Summary
Statements with recommended containment precautions in Section VII, beginning on page 88.
- Appendix B of the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules, April 2002 (nihG or NIH rDNA
Guidelines).
- Biological MSDSs from Canada's Office of Laboratory Security.
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