APHL 2019 POSTER ABSTRACTS
at US laboratories throughout the years. Recently due to the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemiology and
Laboratory Capacity Domestic Ebola Supplemental for Enhanced
Laboratory Biosafety and Biosecurity Capacity Cooperative
Agreement, Biosafety Officials (BSO) from public health laboratories
(PHLs) and the clinical laboratory community have improved their
laboratory biosafety and biosecurity practices to reduce the threat of
LAIs. This poster will highlight recent LAIs due to a lack of laboratory
biosafety and biosecurity procedures along with showcasing
how laboratories across the US along with APHL have developed
resources and trainings to reduce this risk.
What would you like attendees to learn from this session or
presentation? Attendees will learn about LAIs that occurred in the
laboratory workspace that were a result due to lack of biosafety
procedures. The poster will highlight the need for biosafety practices
to be conducted at all times in the laboratory.
Relevance and timeliness: The risk of a LAI is real, most clinical labs
have not incorporated risk assessments and other tools to mitigate
risk into routine processes in their labs. APHL in partnership
with CDC has developed several tools to assist these labs with
strengthening their biosafety practices to reduce these risks.
Learning Objectives:
What would you like attendees to learn from this session or
presentation? The poster will provide attendees resources for
biosafety and biosecurity trainings that they can utilize and distribute
to the clinical laboratories within their jurisdictions at no cost.
Relevance: There is a gap of fundamental biosafety and biosecurity
practices within clinical laboratories across the United States. Staff
in these labs lack specific training in biosafety and biosecurity
practices, which some perceived as an impediment to productivity.
PHL Biosafety Officers and APHL partners have addressed these gaps
in the development of virtual trainings.
Learning Objectives:
• Attendees will gather information on how biosafety officers
and APHL partners are engaging clinical labs in biosafety and
biosecurity trainings.
• Highlight biosafety and biosecurity trainings developed through
APHL partners such as American Biological Safety Association
and The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
• Highlight biosafety and biosecurity trainings developed through
PHLs
Presenter: Drew Fayram, State Hygienic Laboratory at the University
of Iowa, Coralville, IA, [email protected]
At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to:
• Highlight LAIs that have occurred due to a lack of biosafety
practices and procedures
• Show the impact of work APHL and our patterns have
accomplished since the CDC cooperative agreement to mitigate
risks in the laboratory
Presenter: Michael Perry, New York State Department of Health-
Wadsworth Center, Albany, NY, [email protected]
Biosafety Trainings: A Closer Look to Available Trainings
Online
M. Marsico 1 , D. Fayram 2 ; 1 Association of Public Health Laboratories,
2
State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa
In 2015, 64 state, local and territorial public health labs (PHLs) were
part of the three-year, $21 million US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity Domestic Ebola
Supplemental for Enhanced Laboratory Biosafety and Biosecurity
Capacity Cooperative Agreement. These PHLs had to enhance and
improve their internal laboratory biosafety and biosecurity practices
but also work with their clinical laboratories in their jurisdiction to
improve their practices and biosafety capacity as well.
In order to strengthen biosafety and biosecurity practices in clinical
laboratories, PHLs and APHL partners have developed numerous
online trainings where participants can abccess these at any time
from their own laboratories. These trainings are freely available for
laboratorians to access on their respective websites. These trainings
provided clinical laboratorians the necessary information to enhance
and improve their biosafety and biosecurity practices. For instance,
the State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa provides
training, courses and other resources to public and environmental
health professionals throughout Iowa and across the nation. The
State Hygienic Laboratory provides online trainings to help clinical
laboratories improve knowledge and best practices of biosecurity
along with trainings to detect potential biological threat agents.
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org
Emphasizing Biosafety Training in a Medical Laboratory
Technology Program to Enhance Biosafety Knowledge
and Capacity in the Future Workforce
S. Cochran 1 , J. Elwood 1 , D. Fayram 1 , K. Friedley 2 ; 1 State Hygienic
Laboratory at the University of Iowa, 2 Kirkwood Community College
Since 2015, biosafety professionals in public health laboratories
across the US and its territories have worked with clinical diagnostic
laboratories to enhance biosafety and biosecurity capacity. These
efforts have utilized many approaches and achieved varying degrees
of success.
One universally recognized need is for formal biosafety training as
an integrated component of academic curricula. The State Hygienic
Laboratory at the University of Iowa (SHL) and Kirkwood Community
College (KCC) share a strong partnership and facilities conveniently
located near one another on the University of Iowa Research Park.
Recognizing an opportunity for a unique collaboration, these entities
developed an introductory biosafety course as part of KCC’s first
ever accredited Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT) program. This
course was first taught during the fall 2018 semester. The goal of
this collaboration is to instill in students the didactic knowledge
of biosafety theory and best practices before they start clinical
laboratory experiences or their careers.
The team began with the 1 credit, 1 semester undergraduate
biosafety curriculum recently developed by ABSA International
and modified it to better align with the goals of the Kirkwood MLT
program and meet the unique demands of the clinical laboratory
setting. Adjunct instructors included two microbiology staff from SHL
who combined best practice information with accounts of their own
work experiences. Guest lecturers for this course included the SHL
Biosafety Officer and several members of the APHL Biosafety and
Biosecurity Committee.
To our knowledge, this is the first collaboration between a state
public health laboratory and a community college-based MLT
program that aims to enhance biosafety in clinical laboratories
Summer 2019 LAB MATTERS
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