Biosafety Manual

The purpose of our biosafety site is to provide guidance and direction for handling, transporting and disposing of hazardous biological agents at St. Michael’s Hospital. A hazardous biological agent is defined as biologically-derived material that poses a hazard to human health or to the environment. Although the awareness of the hazards posed by these agents have increased over the previous decades, the widespread and increasing use of these agents in research, means they pose an ever increasing risk to researchers and the general public.

Quick guide

Introduction

  1. President statement on health and safety (internal use only)
    1. Safety in Research Core Facilities areas at St. Michael’s
  2. Biosafety Program at St. Michael’s
    1. Organisational Structure for Biosafety at St. Michael’s 
    2. Roles and responsibilities for parties using biohazardous materials in Research
  3. Workplace Health, Wellness and Safety (internal use only)
    1. Biosecurity Plan
    2. Biosafety Permit Application Process
  4. Regulations and Legislation concerning Biosafety
  5. Human Pathogens and Toxins Act
  6. Occupational Health and Safety Act
  7. Transport of dangerous goods
  8. Canadian Biosafety Standards and Guidelines
  9. Biosafety standard operating procedures and policies

General

  1. Roles and responsibilities for parties in Research
  2. Research laboratory attire guidelines
  3. Waste stream guidelines – Research
  4. Decommissioning of Research laboratories

Chemical safety

  1. Chemical storage – Research
  2. Chemical fume hood guidelines
  3. Chemical transport guidelines – Research
  4. Flammable and combustible liquid guidelines
  5. Unstable chemical guidelines
  6. Handling guidelines for compressed gases – Research
  7. Cryogenics handling
  8. Chemical spill procedure – minor
  9. Chemical waste disposal guidelines – Research

Biological safety

  1. Biological risk groups
  2. Biological Containment Levels
  3. Biological Safety Cabinets Guidelines
  4. Cell Culture Guidelines
  5. Adenovirus Guidelines
  6. Facilities Lentiviral Guidelines
  7. Bacterial Culture Guidelines
  8. Blood-borne-Pathogens-Guidelines
  9. Biomedical and Biohazardous Waste Disposal Guidelines

Research Core Facilities SOPs

  1. Cold room/controlled temperature room use
  2. Nanodrop spectrophotometer 
  3. Ultracentrifuge use
  4. X-ray film processor use
  5. Waters HPLC empower software use
  6. Waters HPLC start-up procedure