The Laboratory Safety Blog has been developed to open a dialog and address a variety of topics regarding biological safety. We will cover topics ranging from general issues in biosafety and primary containment to Class III Biological Safety Cabinets as well as innovations in biosafety engineering.

The Laboratory Safety Blog serves as a professional forum for biosafety professionals and industrial hygienists, scientists and technicians, architects and engineers, and other professional groups with an interest in laboratory safety.  Based on questions we receive on a regular basis, some of the topics we will discuss in the near term include but are not limited to:

• Defining the standard Class III Biological Safety Cabinet (BSC).
• Identifying methods to transfer materials.
• Innovations in transferring lab animals and never breaking containment.
• Ergonomic improvements of Class III BSC over the past few years.
• Factors involved in choosing gloves, and an overview of glove availability.
• Methods of decontaminating a Biological Safety Cabinet.
• How to prepare a biosafety cabinet for gaseous decontamination.
• Determining the efficacy of the decontamination process.
• Explaining how a ventilated or non-ventilated pass through box works and the advantages/disadvantages of each.
• Various discussions on mobile labs, modular labs and their applications.
• Discussion of the guidelines for manufacturer and field testing of Class III BSC…and their differences.
• Development of best practices in Class III BSC field performance tests.

We invite reader questions and responses as part of a mutually beneficial educational process to strengthen a collective knowledge of biosafety, identify biosafety engineering products that are needed by user groups, and foster a safer, healthier and more productive workplace environment.