For the 4th consecutive year, the NIH Office of Science Policy designated October as National Biosafety Month. During this month, the NIH encourages institutions to highlight the importance of biosafety and take on activities to strengthen their programs and increase engagement. This year, the NIH’s theme for National Biosafety Month is “promoting biosafety through good governance”. At Georgia Tech, we have two faculty lead committees that oversee biosafety: the Biological Materials Safeguards Committee and the Institutional Biosafety Committee. The EHS Biosafety website provides details on the oversite of these committees and how they function to ensure biohazard risks are properly managed on campus. The website also provides guidance to campus on a number of biosafety issues, including helpful posters and short how-to videos.

In honor of National Biosafety Month, EHS will host a booth in the GT Health Space on the 2nd Floor of the Student Center on October 6th, 13th, and 25th between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm. We’ll use this time to kick off a new campus-wide Personal Protective Equipment campaign. We will also use October to update laboratory safety and biosafety postings across campus. Be on the lookout for members of the EHS team in your labs and connect with us! We’re available to answer any of your safety related questions.

Thank you for your continued commitment to biosafety at Georgia Tech.