Research & Lab Safety

The Laboratory Safety and Compliance training course is now “required initial training” for all Principal Investigators, lab managers, lab chemical hygiene officers, and people working in a supervisory role in research and teaching laboratories. The class provides essential information on regulatory, policy, and permit requirements, and addresses hazards and risk assessment to ensure lab safety and compliance.

EH&S is implementing a new Lab Safety Award program to acknowledge labs scoring 85% or higher in their safety surveys. 

We often encounter cardboard when we visit biological labs. Unless you are using cardboard as part of your experiment, it doesn’t belong in a biological lab.

Cardboard and other porous materials cannot be decontaminated with a surface spray in the event of a splash, spatter or spill of biohazardous material. In the event of contamination, these items must be autoclaved.

Spring is the perfect time to organize, clean, and remove unnecessary and potentially hazardous clutter, such as cardboard.  

EH&S has developed a new online Hydrofluoric Acid Safety Training course to help those who work with or may be exposed to hydrofluoric acid (HF) in the workplace. HF exposures can lead to some serious injuries or fatalities.

Why should labs have a standard operating procedure (SOP) for a chemical when the manufacturer safety data sheet (SDS) is available?

Both documents are “required” in the lab but offer different types of important information about a chemical. SDSs can be a good source of information when assessing risks associated with the storage, use, and transport of a chemical or product, whereas an SOP gives the researcher detailed lab-specific information for handling of a chemical at every stage of its presence in the lab.

EH&S has developed a new online Formaldehyde Safety Training module to help principal investigators (PIs), lab managers, researchers and others meet the federal and WA State Formaldehyde worker safety standards for this widely used chemical. The target audience for this training is laboratory and research personnel, including those who work in research, clinical

Effective January 18, 2017, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) placed a ban on powdered patient examination gloves, powdered surgical gloves, and also on powder for lubricating a surgeon’s gloves. The FDA ban also applies to veterinary use such as veterinary clinical care and animal surgery centers.