Past events & courses

Recent breaches of biosafety and biosecurity have emphasised that management failure is normally the root cause of accidents and incidents with biological agents and toxins. Implementation of a systematic biorisk management system, e.g. adopting the CWA 15793 can help organisations manage these risks. 

This two day practical course provides a comprehensive and sound practical introduction to auditing. The course takes participants through the principles, recognized best practices and essential techniques of (HSE / biosafety) auditing. 

Management of risks related to activities with hazardous biological material, be it research, development, production or diagnostics, requires risk assessment at various stages of the activity. To begin with, the hazards of the various biological materials need to be estimated. When genetic modification is involved methods and tools such as viral vectors, plasmids and types of inserts need to be considered. At a second stage biosafety and biosecurity measures need to be evaluated for their ability to contain the biological material. These measures on their own, whether organizational or technical, have their weaknesses and might be vulnerable to failures which need to be taken into account in incident and accident prevention. Advance application of several techniques (such as Fishbone, HAZOP, LOPA, SWIFT, Kinney, FMEA, HACCP, SSQ, Fault-tree, Bow tie, Brenner … ) to manage and assess risk especially in the areas of genetic modification, materials that have an insufficiently defined risk or information, animal and plant related work.

UNamur Auditorium B07 Rue de Bruxelles, 65 BE-5000 Namur Open to BBP members and upon invitation. Participation is free.

LAMOT Congress- en Erfgoedcentrum - Mechelen

EBSA16 Conference - Basel

Biological waste originates from human or animal health care, medical and biotech research, laboratories, greenhouses and other facilities. Careful disposal of this type of waste is an integral component of the organization's biorisk management. 

Small animal biosafety: sourcing and selection of animals, containment of small animals, their safe manipulation (handling, inoculation, force feeding, etc.), different experimental systems (infectious organisms, viral vectors, etc).

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to deal with biological material and had no clue what kind of pathogens it might contain? Have you wondered whether these specimens were containing higher risk group agents than group 1 or 2. Have you wondered how to keep yourself and your colleagues safe when dealing with these specimens whether in research or diagnostics, specifically when it came to  processing large numbers of samples ?