Spotlight on biosafety and biosecurity in life sciences
Open science aims to make scientific research more accessible, reliable, and efficient to all, including life scientists in academia, industry, and the community. Despite the importance of open science, openness may lead to accidental misuse of scientific research and its outcomes. For example, emerging technologies used in biological research may pose risks to scientists or the community if proper safety procedures are not fully followed during laboratory procedures and/or transport of biological samples. Adoption of biosafety and biosecurity is key to reducing potential misuse of scientific research, while reducing any associated risks from mistakes.
With all the community biological research, and DIY activities going on in Africa, JOGL Africa identified an opportunity to organise an online event to discuss biosafety and biosecurity as the May edition of JOGL Africa Community event series. This took place on Thursday, 19th May 2022 and brought together experts in biosafety and biosecurity from Africa and beyond to discuss and share their experiences with the JOGL Africa community.The event was two in one, with a workshop and a panel discussion which explored the importance of biosafety and biosecurity in life science projects.
Tessa Alexanian, a safety and security program officer with the iGEM Foundation led the workshop and explored stories that highlighted the importance of biosafety and biosecurity. She shared helpful resources in life science projects with regards to biosafety and biosecurity, including the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual. She stressed on the importance of safety and why scientists should be bothered, by explaining scenarios like accidental exposure, accidental release, dual-use, and unanticipated/unintended consequences and how they could pose different risks to lab workers.
Tessa’s workshop was followed by questions from the attendees probing the importance of biosecurity in pandemic preparedness. Tessa shared about the importance of the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual as an instrument to handling pandemic preparedness in regard to biosecurity.
After the Question and Answer session, the event continued with a panel discussion moderated by JOGL Africa Ambassador Erikan Baluku. Dr. Sarah Ware from Bioblaze Community Bio Lab, Dr. Talkmore Maruta from Africa CDC and Sandra Matinyi from Synbio Africa were the panellists.
Dr. Sarah Ware, a community biologist and founder of Bio Blaze Community Bio Lab in West Chicago, stressed on the significance of biosafety and biosecurity in the establishment of community bio labs and maker spaces, by sharing her experiences in establishing and managing Bio Blaze and other community bio labs.
Sandra Matinyi, an immunologist, and microbiologist and current chairperson of the Synbio Africa Executive Committee, shared about Synbio Africa’s contributions in advocating for biosafety and biosecurity at the community level. She informed the attendees of how Synbio Africa has introduced the Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs) initiative workshops in sub saharan Africa to educate the community about safety and security with regards to community led biological projects and programs.
Dr. Talkmore Maruta, a public health scientist and Senior Biosafety and Biosecurity Officer at Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa-CDC) discussed how Africa CDC is identifying and filling the biosafety and biosecurity gaps in the African region. He shared that as of 2016, the measurement matrix showed only 32% of member states were actively participating in implementing biosafety and biosecurity, prompting the Africa CDC to develop policies and guidelines to be adopted by member states in implementing biosafety programs.
“In the wake of global biological catastrophes, the African scientists and policy makers need to pay attention to the safety of their research and life science innovations, let us embrace safety and security in life sciences”, -Dr. Talkmore
After the panellists had discussed their experiences and shared their perspectives with the attendees, there was a moment of discussion and reactions on the experiences, and questions were taken from the attendees.
This event created an opportunity for the scientists and local community biologists to connect and establish bonds for future collaborations. At the end, all the attendees were encouraged to check out and utilise JOGL Platforms, and were invited to participate in future JOGL Africa sessions. Don’t miss the Just One Giant Summit session on Biosafety and Biosecurity, register here.
The next JOGL Africa event coming up on 29 June 2022 will be a workshop on Prototyping and Digital Fabrication facilitated by Babasile Daniel of GreenLab Microfactory and OpenLab Hamburg.
