Speakers at EBSA Thursday - WHO LBM4 – Biorisk management beyond risk groups and biosafety levels
EBSA Thursday - WHO LBM4 – Biorisk management beyond risk groups and biosafety levels
About the speakers
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Allan Bennett
Allan Bennett OBEAcademic Education and degreesB. Sc (hons), Microbiology – University of Glasgow 1979-1983M.Sc, Process Biotechnology – University of Birmingham 1983-1984Present Professional PositionHead of Biosafety, Air and Water Microbiology Group, UK Health Security Agency.Co-Head WHO Collaborating Centre in Applied Biosafety and TrainingPrincipal Investigator and scientific expert in aerobiology, biosafety, environmental microbiology, high containment laboratories, and disinfection. Heads a research group of 20 scientists undertaking research in the fields of respiratory virus transmission, aerobiology, biocontainment, water microbiology and SARS-CoV-2. Has over 100 (h=30) peer reviewed scientific publications.
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Kathrin Summermatter
Academic Education and DegreesPhD in BiologyPresent Professional PositionHead of Biosafety CenterManaging Director of the Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory, Institute for Infectious Diseases, University of Berne, SwitzerlandThe Institute for Infectious Diseases of the University of Bern combines diagnostics, teaching and research under one roof and covers the entire spectrum of microbiological diagnostics.Kathrin Summermatter is heading the Biosafety Center of the Institute for Infectious Diseases of the University of Bern, Switzerland. She is also the managing director of the BSL3 at the Institute for Infectious Diseases and sitem-insel. She has been involved in Biosafety for more than 20 years. From 2002 -2019 she was the head of the biosafety department and the deputy director of the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI), the Swiss reference lab for highly contagious animal diseases (Biosafety Level 3 and 3Ag Laboratories). In addition, she was the coordinator of BIOSAFETY-Europe. She has been a long-standing member of the European Biosafety Association (EBSA) and the American Biosafety Association (ABSA). In 2003/2004 she was the president of EBSA. She is a member of the International Veterinary Biosafety Workgroup and a board member of the Swiss Biosafety Network (SBNet). She is the chair of the Technical Advisory Biosafety Board (TAG-B) of the WHO and a member of the WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). She is also the director of the WHO-Collaborating Center for Biosafety and Biosecurity.