Biological Safety

Providing support, in the form of risk assessment, review, consultation and training, for research at UC Berkeley that involves the use of recombinant DNA, biohazardous materials and biological toxins.

Campus Committees

Certain high-hazard activities and equipment require additional safety training and written pre-approval. Faculty-led committees issue use authorizations for high hazard activities to ensure the work is safe and monitored appropriately. These include:

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Summary of Charges

The campus Laboratory Operations...

Biological Safety

Providing support, in the form of risk assessment, review, consultation and training, for research at UC Berkeley that involves the use of recombinant DNA, biohazardous materials and biological toxins.

Biosafety How Do I: collapse all...

Biosafety Laboratory Inspection Program

Biosafety Biosafety Laboratory Inspection Program

EH&S safety professionals conduct inspections of all laboratory spaces included on a research group’s Biological Use Authorization (BUA). These inspections cover administrative controls, general laboratory safety, and specific requirements related to the...

Labs and Research

Providing support, in the form of risk assessment, review, consultation(link sends e-mail), training, and the necessary resources and guidance for research at UC Berkeley.

Training

The EH&S training team creates, delivers, and tracks health, safety, and environmental training for all faculty, staff, and students.

Dual Use Research of Concern

Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.

Federal regulations require UC Berkeley to establish a review process of potential government-funded or -conducted DURC research at the grant approval stage....

Job Safety Analysis

Job Safety Analysis or JSAs describes job tasks in step-by-step fashion, identifies associated hazards at each step, and outlines proper hazard controls that minimize the risk of injury or illness to the individual(s) performing that task.

Getting Started with Job Safety Analysis (JSA)

How do I write or find a JSA? The objective of providing this library is to:

Improve safety awareness among staff Decrease injury rates Make effective JSA resources available to the entire UC Berkeley campus

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) - Labs

EH&S provides campus researchers with lab coats, safety glasses, and goggles. We also provide shared protective equipment to labs, such as face shields and protective aprons.

Please contact the PPE coordinator at ppe@berkeley.edu or by calling (510) 642-3073 if you have any questions or comments about personal protective equipment for your lab.

Committee for Laboratory and Environmental Biosafety (CLEB)

The Committee for Laboratory and Environmental Biosafety (CLEB) serves as UC Berkeley’s Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). CLEB is comprised of subject matter experts, an animal health expert, an occupational physician, as well as community members.

The committee meets to review Biological Use Authorizations on the first Monday of every month 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm via Zoom. RSVP by email is required. If you wish to attend a committee meeting or have any other questions regarding CLEB, please contact...

Biological Use Authorization (BUA) Attachments and Resources

Step 1: Experimental Procedures and Risk Assessment

To address general biosafety and standard practices for BSL1, BSL2, and/or ABSL1 work, please download and use the following document:

Common Biosafety Practices Provides sample language for BSL1, BSL2, and/or ABSL1 research procedures Customize the text to fit your own research practices and paste the relevant language into the "Experimental...