The Nominating Committee has begun the process of identifying candidates for this year’s ABSA Council and Nominating Committee elections. Deadline: March 31, 2024 Open positions for 2024 include: President-Elect, Secretary, Councilor (2 positions), and Nominating Committee (4 positions). All people being nominated for a position must be current 2024 ABSA members ..read more

ABSA International’s annual election requires the participation of many members: those who nominate potential candidates, those who choose to become candidates, and those who participate in the election. We are pleased that 30% of our membership voted in this year’s election – an increase from last year. ABSA International would like to thank all those ..read more

The ABSA Emerging Infectious Diseases Committee (EIDC) collated resources that will help the biosafety professional conduct risk assessments for waterborne diseases and fungal diseases. The CDC says "every year, waterborne disease causes 7 million illnesses and $3 billion in healthcare costs in the US". The Waterborne Diseases toolbox (https://absa.org/topic/waterborne/) include resources for the US ..read more

A recent article by a group of cyber-physical security experts at University of California Irvine (UCI) highlighted a potential vulnerability in negative pressure containment rooms. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3548606.3560643 A commentary about this article was authored by George Poste and David Gillum at Arizona State University asking the question: "Should this research have been published?" https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/researchers-hacked-a-labs-pathogen-containment-system-was-it-a-good-idea-to-publish-the-results/#post-heading The ..read more

The ABSA International Laboratory-Acquired Infection (LAI) Database has posted new entries for the following pathogens or toxins. You can search partial terms using the asterisk (*), AND, OR: 2013- Shiga Toxin from Escherichia coli O157:H7: mixing six E. coli O157:H7 strains in a soil-biochar blend Unknown time- Zika Virus; Injection of a highly concentrated live ZIKV strain into ..read more

It is easy for groups within institutions to fall victim to a “silo” operational approach, between handling day-to-day operations and unplanned challenges. The danger in this is obvious when safety is isolated as a group few know about and only turn to when there is an occupational exposure. Building bridges between safety professionals and other ..read more

The ABSA International Emerging Infectious Diseases Committee (EIDC) continues to update the toolboxes for salient infectious diseases and other relevant topics such as antimicrobial resistance. The latest updates include the following: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Toolbox updates feature resources related to minimizing transmission of SARS CoV-2 from free-range animals to humans, recent peer-reviewed publications on SARS CoV-2 variants ..read more

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2021 Biosafety and Biosecurity Month in October. Putting a spotlight on Biosafety and Biosecurity at our institutions is an excellent way to foster a culture of biosafety and biosecurity. Did you know that Biosafety and Biosecurity Month began as a “National Biosafety Stewardship Month”, sponsored by the ..read more

David Gillum, Kathleen Vogel, Rebecca Moritz The origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains a mystery. One theory is that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was transmitted from animals to humans – a fairly common occurrence. Another is that it came from a laboratory accident – a more infrequent circumstance. Around the world, scientists conduct many kinds of ..read more

The ABSA International Technical and Regulatory Review Committee compiled a Summary of Changes and a Side-by-Side Comparison to the 6th edition of the CDC/NIH Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL-6) released in November of 2020. The BMBL-6 continues to be, since the first edition in 1984, an advisory document. Consequently, words such as "must" and "should" have been ..read more