Recent News

By Region: North America

International survey on laboratory safety launched

(Nature News Blog) The death of Sheharbano Sangji in 2008, following a fire in the chemistry department at the University of California, Los Angeles, triggered calls to improve academia’s safety standards not just at UCLA, but across the United States. Similar concerns were voiced last year when a young undergraduate student, Michele Dufault, died at Read More »

June 15, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, International, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Air System Glitches Found at CDC Disease Laboratory

(Global Security Newswire) Official papers and e-mailed statements indicate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has faced multiple operational glitches in technology intended to ensure that disease particles cannot be carried by air out of a $214 million biodefense research space at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta, USA Today reported on Tuesday

June 15, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, and Research
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Big NBAF Report Expected Friday

(KCUR) In a highly anticipated announcement, the National Academies of Science said that it will release a congressionally mandated report on risk associated with the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) this Friday. Stalled congressional funding is believed to be linked to the results of this report. The animal disease laboratory, under construction in Manhattan, Read More »

June 14, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agriculture, Biosafety, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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The Laboratory That Infects Salad With Deadly Pathogens

(Popular Science) Deep in the Illinois Institute of Technology is a Biosafety Level 3 certified containment unit: one of the only places in the country that intentionally infects spinach with live, potentially deadly E. coli pathogens. Lab workers don moon suits, step through an airlock, and then send 500 pounds of salad splashing down a Read More »

June 14, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, and Research
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Winnipeg lab reports progress in potential treatment for deadly Ebola infection

(Global Edmonton) TORONTO – Canadian researchers are reporting a potential advance in the treatment of Ebola virus infection, one of the most deadly pathogens known to humankind. Researchers from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg are reporting that monkeys deliberately infected with Ebola were successfully saved with a cocktail of antibodies against the virus.