Name	Title	Phone	Email
Karen Moré, MS, CPIA	Director of Research Compliance	860.486.2459	karen.more@uconn.edu
Ramaswamy M. Chidambaram, DVM, PhD	Director, Center for Comparative Medicine	860.679.2731	clac@uchc.edu
Alison D. Pohl, MS, rLATg, CPIA	IACUC Administrator	860.679.4129	ooacc@uchc.edu

 

Environmental Health & Safety
UConn Health
263 Farmington Avenue, MC 1514
Farmington, CT 06030-1514
860.679.2723

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Steven R. Jacobs	Director	860.679.2723	jacobs@uchc.edu
Robert Gottlieb	Chemical Safety Officer	860.679.3512	gottlieb@uchc.edu
Vacant	Biological Safety Officer	860.679.3781
Elizabeth Pokorski	Business Services Manager	860.679.2723	epokorski@uchc.edu
Lucy Piechowski	Administrative Program Coordinator	860.679.2250	piechowski@uchc.edu
Ryan Cawley	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist II	860.679.4638	rcawley@uchc.edu
Daniel Sasso	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist II	860.679.4062	sasso@uchc.edu
Robert Bush	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist I	860-679-4241	robush@uchc.edu
Thomas Costello	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist I	86-679-4703	thcostello@uchc.edu

 

Forms

• Pre-Budget Workbook Packet
• Dental Pre-Budget Workbook Packet
• Routing IPR Form
• Invoice Template
• Letter of Self Insurance
• EpicCare Link Request Form

Templates

• Investigator Initiated OCTR CTA Template
• Sponsored Program Industry CTA Template
• Sponsored Program Industry CDA Template

Biosafety Cabinet (BSC):

• BSC Basics
• NuAire BSC Training Course
• Selection, Installation, and Use of BSCs – see Appendix A in the BMBL (page 290)

 

Centrifuge Aerosol Biosafety:

• Fixed-angle Rotors
• Swinging-bucket Rotors

 

Various Topics in Biosafety:

• Exposure to Aerosols
• Practical Information About Aerosols (and the procedures/equipment that generate them)
• Aspirator Set Up
• Import, Export & Shipping of Biological Materials
• Discussion about Tissue/Cell Culture Contamination
• Autoclave Safety
• Sharps Containers
• Lab Hygiene and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
• Regulated Medical Waste Definitions & Guidance
• General Biological Spill Protocol

 

Training Completion form:

• CT DPH annual BSL-2 refresher training form

 

• All laboratories in Connecticut that work with known infectious agents (Risk Group 2 or above) need to register with CT DPH. For an overview of the CT DPH registration process you can contact the BSO. The process has changed somewhat recently.
• You can get the same checklist that the State Inspector uses to inspect your lab from the BSO to prepare for the inspection. You don’t need to fill it out.
• If you’re working at BSL-2 with animals (ABSL-2), you can get the same checklist the State Inspector uses to inspect this kind of laboratory from the BSO.
• A few things are supposed to be posted in the lab. One is an emergency plan and procedure for cleaning up a spill of biological materials. The other is the Eyewash Log for weekly eyewash station testing.
• For training documents applicable to laboratories with a CT DPH registration you can contact the BSO.
• Please document all training that is completed within the laboratory or from this website.

Return to the Biosafety Main Page

About IBCs

Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBC) are federally mandated in the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules (NIH r/s NA Guidelines) for institutions that host r/s NA work (see Section IV, “Roles and Responsibilities”, NIH r/s NA Guidelines).

In recent years, it has been recognized by NIH that the roles and responsibilities of IBCs are growing. IBCs are being given responsibilities for oversight of biohazard materials and emerging technologies like xenotransplantation, nanotechnology and biosecurity.

Contact the UConn Health IBC

At UConn Health, you can contact the IBC through its email at IBC@uchc.edu

Submissions to the UConn Health IBC

The UConn Health IBC meets monthly. See Meeting Dates for details. Submissions are previewed by the Biosafety Program Coordinator for clarification prior to consideration by the IBC reviewers. All submissions should be by email as a word document (please do not send a .pdf). Final submissions should be made two weeks prior to the meeting date, to allow the reviewers time. The BPC will preview submissions on a first-come-first-served basis up to 10 days before IBC meetings. Direct all submissions to the BPC.

Submissions to the IBC consist of Registrations for the use of biohazardous materials and for use of r/s NA. Safety Protocols that bring up biosafety  issues that come to the attention of the BSO from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Institutional Review Board, and from researchers themselves are routed to the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC).

To find out how recombinant registrations are defined in the NIH r/s NA Guidelines and the two ways recombinant registrations are handled by the IBC relative to approval and the timing beginning of experiments, you can read the first paragraphs of Sections III-D and III-E in the NIH r/s NA Guidelines.

To be compliant, pass everything by the Biosafety Program  prior to beginning an experiment.

About the UConn Health Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC)

The UConn Health IBC consists of about a dozen members of whom half are researchers with expertise in areas of research that are pertinent to the research that is reviewed. The NIH r/s NA Guidelines require that at least two members are unaffiliated with UConn Health to represent the interest of the surrounding community with respect to health and protection of the environment.

If the membership of the IBC is lacking in expertise concerning a particular registration or issue, the IBC will engage an ad hoc member that has the required expertise. These are usually recruited from the UConn Health faculty.

At times the IBC is looking for additional members, both affiliated with UConn Health and unaffiliated. Please contact the UConn Health BioSafety Program Coordinator if this would interest you.

Times to Contact the BioSafety Program

When you have questions or concerns about:

• Safety and/or compliance around the use of biohazardous materials
• Safety and/or compliance around the use of recombinant or synthetic nucleic acids (r/s NA).
• Safety and/or compliance around the use of viral vectors.
• Using (or ordering – all SA toxin orders must be made through the BSO) an infectious agent or toxin that is on or not on the Select Agent List.
• Experiments involving biohazardous materials such as human, animal or plant pathogens in the laboratory or collecting human samples for research purposes.
• Experiments Involving the Cloning of Toxin Molecules with LD₅₀ of Less than 100 Nanograms per Kilogram Body Weight, including but not limited to: botulinum, tetanus, diphtheria and shigella toxins.
• Experiments involving the deliberate transfer of a drug resistance trait to microorganisms that are not known to acquire the trait naturally, if such acquisition could compromise the ability to control the disease agents in humans, veterinary medicine or agriculture.
• Performing a human gene transfer experiment (you wish to put r/s NA into human subjects).
• Biosafety training.
• Checking anything but ‘no use of r/s NA’  in the recombinant/synthetic materials/compliance section (Section 6) of the IACUC animal application.

Return to the IBC Process

Information for IBC Registration Forms and Determination of Project Exemption

• See the definition of recombinant DNA in the NIH r/s NA Guidelines. Go to the table of contents and click Section I-B. An abbreviated version is: “Molecules which are constructed outside living cells by joining DNA segments to DNA molecules that can replicate in a living cell.” (R. Gilpin, PhD, RBP, CBSP, 2002).
• SOI: Sequence-Of-Interest. One important characteristic of a SOI is its origin – what species it derives from originally. It may also be important to note the actual origin of the fragment of nucleic acid you are using, for instance, a BAC, a lambda phage or other library. NCBI GenBank Accession number, GeneID#, MGI or other database  references are also helpful.
• Host: A temporary or endpoint organism used to replicate or express r/s NA. For instance, E. coli K-12 used to replicate plasmids, HEK 293 cells used to replicate viral vectors,  transgenic organisms.
• Vector: Peripheral NA used to manipulate (deliver, express, replicate, recombine) the SOI. For instance, some plasmids, and viruses have been engineered to allow manipulation of SOIs.
• Host-Vector-SOI Systems (H-V-SOI): A basic “unit” of the NIH r/s NA Guidelines. Certain H-V-SOI have been exempted from the requirement for registration with the IBC. Many projects that involve r/s NA require several H-V-SOI to manipulate the SOI into the environment where its effects can be studied. If you can let the IBC know what H-V-SOI systems you are using in your project, it can tell you which, if any, need to be registered and at what point in the project you need to have IBC approval. Another important part of this process is for the IBC and PI to determine what safety precautions and practices (containment) need to be used in the use of the H-V-SOIs in your project.

Exemption Criteria

• Section III-F of the NIH rDNA Guidelines. In Section III-F-8, Appendix C is referred to, which further defines exempt H-V-SOI systems. Watch out for exceptions to the exemptions!
• Some transgenic rodents are exempt. Contact the IBC Coordinator or IACUC Coordinator.
• Corrections to possible misconceptions about exemption to the NIH r/s NA Guidelines and safety (safe – means more than basic laboratory precautions and/or microbiological practices are not necessary):
  • Biosafety Level 1 (BSL-1 or BL1) experiments are not automatically exempt.
  • All experiments in E. coli are not necessarily exempt or safe.
  • Commercial (kits) or well-worn host-vector systems are not necessarily exempt or safe.
  • Exempt experiments are not necessarily safe, that is, a higher BSL and/or other precautions and/or practices may be required by the IBC.

Return to the IBC Process