Institutional Biosafety Committee

 

Reporting to the University Research Council (URC), the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) has a mandate to ensure the execution of safe and secure research in all laboratories at AKU where research is conducted both on-site and off-site. The Committee's main purpose is to perform critical hazard risk assessment, provide guidance and create awareness about the safe handling of various bio-hazardous materials.  It ensures the compliance of policies in the light of institutional, national and international recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Raise awareness about laboratory biohazards, risk management, and risk mitigation among the faculty, students, research assistants and other lab staff of AKU. 
• Develop​ policies and procedures to facilitate IBC in making decisions of approval/rejection/exemption for the conduct of research studies involving the use of biohazardous materials. 
• To evaluate the appropriate handling of hazardous material in the labs. This evaluation includes but is not limited to; type of hazardous material being used (biological, radiological, recombinant DNA, toxin, human tissues/body fluid etc.),  mode of acquisition of the material, amount of the material, use of vertebrate animals or plants, categorization of the biological material and use of appropriate facility design and training experience of personnel involved. 
• Ensure adequate awareness and training of bio-risk management for AKU faculty, staff and students. 
• Oversight of the compliance to AKU policies and protocols. 
• Maintain a record of any shortfalls, hazardous exposure, mitigation reports, and laboratory-acquired infections.

IBC Review and Approval Procedure ​

IBC Meeting Procedure

AKU-IBC meets once a month for review and approval of research/teaching activity proposals (Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month).