Ask a Biosafety Expert
A free, volunteer biosafety Q&A service for the DIYbio community
Ask a Biosafety Expert (“ABE”) launched in January 2013 as a free educational service connecting DIY biologists with a panel of volunteer, professional biosafety experts. Anyone could submit a biosafety question online; a committee of experts would meet to discuss it and craft a response, published online for the wider community to reference alongside a growing database of previously answered questions.
The program was generously supported by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars’ Synthetic Biology Project, with additional support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Its volunteer Biosafety Advisory Board over the years included university biosafety officers and Institutional Biosafety Committee members with backgrounds ranging from chemical biology to microbiology to environmental health.
ABE has since closed and is no longer accepting new questions. From its closure notice: “A huge thanks to the biosafety experts that volunteered their time over the years… If you have a biosafety question, you might find a sympathetic biosafety professional through your local university or find a local chapter through one of the professional biosafety associations.”
Biosafety Advisory Board
ABE ran entirely on the volunteer effort of professional biosafety experts. With gratitude, the board members and alumni contributors:
Matthew Anderson, Ph.D. — Biosafety Officer at a land grant university, managing the university’s biosafety program, conducting lab safety inspections, and serving as Alternate Responsible Official for its Select Agent program and as administrator of its Institutional Biosafety Committee. B.A. in Biology and Chemistry (Dana College); Ph.D. in Chemical Biology (Washington University in St. Louis).
Rob Foreman, Ph.D. — Associate Biosafety Officer at Northwestern University, advising on risks involving human, animal, and plant pathogens, human tissues and cell cultures, recombinant DNA, and human gene transfer. Alternate Responsible Official for the Federal Select Agent Program. Ph.D. in Microbiology (University of Chicago, 2012); Great Lakes Regional Center for Excellence biosafety fellowship.
Amy Helgerson, M.S. — Biosafety Specialist at a large agricultural university with a veterinary school, serving as Alternate Responsible Official for its Select Agent program and coordinating its bloodborne pathogen and biological waste disposal programs. B.S. in Animal Science (Iowa State, 2000); M.S. in Microbiology (Iowa State, 2006).
Ted Myatt, Sc.D., RBP — Director of Research Compliance, overseeing an Institutional Biosafety Committee. B.S. in Microbiology (University of Illinois); M.A. in Environmental Management (Duke); Sc.D. in Environmental Health (Harvard School of Public Health).
Alumni contributors: Stephen Rusbarsky, J Craig Reed, Marissa M. Cardwell, Amy L. Razukiewicz, Lisa Burley, Joleen Weese, Rebecca L. Moritz, Molly Stitt-Fischer, Gretchen Demmin, Todd Kuiken.
Further reading
For anyone doing biology outside a traditional lab setting today, these general references remain useful:
- American Biological Safety Association — its Biosafety Links page is a good starting point.
- CDC’s Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (6th Edition) — the field’s standard reference, technical but thorough.
- NIH Office of Science Policy — Biosafety and Biosecurity Policy — publishes the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules; its FAQ and educational materials are more approachable than the full regulatory text.
- Health Canada Pathogen Safety Data Sheets — safety data sheets for a wide range of infectious agents, both common and exotic.
Adapted from DIYbio.org’s original program pages.
