The Institute of Biophysics attaches great importance to laboratory safety and security. To ensure compliance with biosafety and biosecurity policies and regulations, and to build a strong biosafety culture, all new staff and graduate students at the Institute of Biophysics are required to receive mandatory laboratory safety training, pass an examination and obtain a Biosafety Certificate before commencement of any laboratory work. Specific safety procedures associated with an individual’s work will be covered when the new worker begins using those procedures.
The Committee of Biosafety & Experimental Animal Management is in charge of laboratory safety at the Institute. The Committee is composed of the following members:
Director: Rongqiao He
Deputy Director: Hongyu Deng, Zuxiang Liu, Yong Tian
Members: Hongyu Deng, Peishuang Du, Rongqiao He, Baidong Hou, Zuxiang Liu, Yong Tian, Bo Wang, Zengqiang Yan, Liguo Zhang, Ping Zhu, Mingzhao Zhu
Secretaries: Xiang Shi, Tianyu Wang
Here are some biosafety, biosecurity and bioethics resources:
◊ WHO | Responsible life sciences research for global health security
Advances in life sciences research are inextricably linked to improvements in human, plant and animal health. Promotion of excellent, high-quality life sciences research that is conducted responsibly, safely and securely can foster global health security and contribute to economic development, evidence-informed policy making, public trust and confidence in science. Yet opportunities may also be accompanied by risks that need to be acknowledged and addressed. The risks under consideration in this guidance are those associated with accidents, with research that may pose unexpected risks and with the potential deliberate misuse of life sciences research. The opportunities offered by the life sciences are too important for governments and the scientific community (including individual researchers, laboratory managers, research institutions, professional associations, etc.) to leave the attendant risks unaddressed.
◊ Life Sciences and Related Fields: Trends Relevant to the Biological Weapons Convention
The volume you have in hand is one of the most relevant results of a cooperative effort among Quaid-i-Azam University, Landau Network Centro Volta, and Sandia National Laboratories aimed to provide the Pakistani life-sciences academic community with better instruments for education on managing biorisk and dual-use issues. The joint project also assessed the current awareness of these emerging topics among young scientists in Pakistan. Pakistan is a growing market for life sciences and biotechnologies, and a country where biotechnologies have great potential for beneficial social, economic, and health impacts. Recent estimates put biotech revenues in Pakistan in 2010 at 1.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP), and this percentage is expected to grow.6 Research in academia is also rapidly developing; publications by Pakistani research teams quadrupled in the last decade. Significantly, the majority of publications by major universities are from the life sciences. More than 200 university departments in Pakistan conduct life-science research, with growth expected in all areas, but particularly industry has been a government priority; with this government support, the country opened its first biotech plant in 2010.7
◊ BEIJING ON BIOHAZARDS: Chinese Experts on Bioweapons Nonproliferation Issues
Here are some related links:
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