Lab Matters Winter 2018 | Page 15

from the bench biorisk management is now recognized as a vital component of a laboratory quality management system, and a risk assessment is understood to be an essential component of the biorisk management system that needs to be in place in every laboratory. This system encompasses mitigation, evaluation and continuous improvement.

Using the Reward of Knowledge to Lower Risk

Performing a risk assessment identifies how laboratorians are vulnerable to exposures and steps needed to mitigate any hazards. For the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, risk assessments have become integral to bench work. From known respiratory species to unknown clinical samples, risk assessments allow laboratorians to correctly identify potential biohazards and understand when to elevate caution based on presented factors. For instance, if a laboratorian performs a risk assessment and identifies that the unknown clinical sample is from a patient who recently traveled overseas and was in contact with birds in an area with reported highly pathogenic avian influenza, the laboratorian would identify the sample as a potential high-risk exposure. Thus, the laboratorian would trigger BSL-2 + or BSL-3 procedures as appropriate to the sample’ s level of risk.

Culturally, laboratory risk management has become more prevalent over time compared to 1918. For Wadsworth staff, risk assessments in conjunction with PPE have improved its quality management system. Due to its recording and traceability capacity, the quality management system has guided laboratorians in improving the accuracy of infectious agents’ distribution while creating accountability to ensure decontamination procedures are effective and well-documented.

On Christmas Day, 1901, Dr. Richard Shope was born in Des Moines, Iowa to Mary and Charles Shope, a prominent physician. After graduating from high school in 1918 at the age of 16, he enrolled at the University of Iowa and received his medical degree. He then joined the State University of Iowa Department of Pharmacology, where he taught and studied the chemotherapy of tuberculosis.

From Iowa, Shope moved his family to Princeton, NJ, to work at the Rockefeller Institute. In his early years at the Rockefeller Institute, Shope developed an interest in“ hog cholera” since it was an economically devastating disease in Iowa [ now eradicated ]. This led him to field studies that introduced him to swine influenza and close collaboration with eastern Iowa veterinarians to achieve breakthroughs in this disease. As a consequence, Dr. Shope often was misidentified as being a veterinarian. It was during this time that he first observed an outbreak of swine influenza, which he noted was very similar in symptoms to human influenza. In 1931, Shope discovered a filterable virus that produced“ hog influenza,” which was later discovered to be identical to human influenza virus A. In 1936, it was identified as the same virus that circulated during the

1918 pandemic.

After this discovery, Shope went on to study the epidemiology of swine influenza. During

World War II, Shope served in the Navy and continued in medical research. Following the war, he returned to Princeton and his work at the Rockefeller Institute. He later became an Associate Director of the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research. He was honored during his career with many awards and distinctions.

Dr. Richard Shope. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Special thanks to Kirsten St. George, PhD, MAppSc, chief, Viral Diseases, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health for providing background information on Wadsworth’ s quality management system.

With the certainty of an unending stream of emerging pathogens, the risk assessment process will remain the bedrock of systems protecting scientists in the workplace. n