Fun and fundamentals forecasted for Biosafety and Biosecurity Day

Last year it was a zombie. This year it’s a thieving scientist.

Regardless of the foe, the goal of the laboratory-themed escape room at Virginia Tech’s annual Biosafety and Biosecurity Day remains the same each year. 

“When you're having fun, you're more relaxed and without realizing it, you're taking information in,” said Regina Allen, director of the Institutional Biosafety Committee Program. “We can sit there all day long explaining how you should do x, y, and z to make sure things are safe and secure, but to actually go and participate in something where you’re putting those protocols to work, even though you're having fun, you can’t help but learn.”

The escape room is just one of several activities planned on the Blacksburg campus to highlight the university’s second Biosafety and Biosecurity Day on Oct. 23. Sponsored by the Division of Scholarly Integrity and Research Compliance and Environmental Health and Safety, the event in the Fralin Hall atrium will run from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and include various challenges, trivia, crafts, resources, and even a biosafety-themed photo booth. 

Allen said the goal of the event is to both create awareness and cultivate relationships between those tasked with the education and compliance of biosafety and biosecurity protocols and those abiding by them in the lab. Often, those involved with the oversight of compliance are viewed as being judgmental or unapproachable, but their mission involves supporting and guiding researchers and students through the regulations that exist.

“This is a great time to come and meet all of the people who are involved in helping to make sure that we maintain biosafety and biosecurity on campus,” said Allen, who is also the Institutional Biosafety Committee administrator. “The whole idea is to make people realize that compliance is not about getting people, but it’s more about education and knowing we are a resource for them.”

Along with Allen, event organizers include Ling Chen of the Institutional Biosafety Committee Program as well as Anna Kroner, Michael Miles, Allie Price, and Charlotte Waggoner of Environmental Health and Safety.

The event coincides with October being National Biosafety and Biosecurity Month, which was started by the National Institutes of Health in 2014. And it’s complemented by a two-month challenge that had labs competing against each other in various activities with the goal of winning the Biosafety and Biosecurity Lab Challenge Trophy.

“Really, the whole month is about not only understanding how your university does biosafety and biosecurity, but also how you as an individual are involved and hopefully understands their role,” Allen said.

A few quick tips on biosafety and biosecurity:

• Always wear your personal protective equipment when in the lab.
• Always wash your hands before exiting the lab.
• Conduct a risk/hazard assessment prior to beginning any new work or when there is a change in the experiment.
• Perform routine inventories of pathogen stocks.
• If you don’t know or aren’t sure about something, ask for assistance