Biosafety Guidelines for Handling Microorganisms in the Teaching Laboratory (and DIYbio?)

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

I just noticed that the American Society for Microbiology published a useful set of Biosafety guidelines for teaching labs. I think those may be more relevant to DIYbio in many cases than the standard CDC guidelines on the topic.

Check it out:

Guidelines for Biosafety in Teaching Laboratories

• Guidelines for Biosafety in Teaching Laboratories (pdf)
• Appendix to the Guidelines for Biosafety in Teaching Laboratories (pdf)
• Biosafety Guidelines for Handling Microorganisms in the Teaching Laboratory: Development and Rationale.

Here's what they have to say about my pet peeve, isolating unknown organisms from environmental samples in BSL-1 (see also the answer to my Ask a Biosafety Expert question):

Biosafety level 1 (BSL1) guidelines for teaching laboratories

• Only use cultures from authorized, commercial, or reputable sources (e.g.,an academic lab or state health department). Cultures isolated from clinical specimens should not be used.
• Do not subculture unknown microbes isolated from the environment because they may be organisms that require BSL2 practices and facilities.

The comments received from the survey of the ASM educator community in February 2012 highlighted the most controversial issues for the BSL1 biosafety guidelines. [...] many objected to not being able to subculture microbes isolated from the environment because they viewed this as the most exciting exercise for young microbiologists and they did not want to deny students the joy and wonder of this discovery-based laboratory. [...] Our statement about isolating unknown microbes from the environment focuses on subculturing. Unknown environmental microbes can be isolated and plated in a BSL1 laboratory, but then the plates must be sealed and only observed. This exercise would still demonstrate the ubiquity, diversity, and abundance of environmental microbes. Any additional culturing of isolated microorganisms should be done in a BSL2 laboratory since the pathogenicity of the isolate is unknown. For additional information, a section of the appendix is devoted to isolation of unknown microbes from the environment.

Isolation of Unknown Microbes from the Environment
A common microbiology exercise is collecting environmental samples and plating the samples for colonies. Whether the sample is from nature (soil, leaves, etc.), inanimate objects (doorknobs, telephones, etc.), or humans (skin swabs, etc.), the isolated colonies could be organisms needing BSL2 containment and in rare cases BSL3 containment. Plating isolates from environmental samples can be performed in a BSL1 lab. These plates should be sealed, stored in a secure location, and only observed, not opened or subcultured. After observation, the plates must be decontaminated by autoclaving and properly disposed of. Subculturing of environmental samples should only be performed in a BSL2 lab.

Patrik

[Nikola Nikolov]

Hi,
Who is staffing Fridays and Saturdays at BC

Thanks
Nikola

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