Seeking data to make labs safer

Abstract

If there’s a watershed moment in the history of laboratory safety research, it may be the 2009 death of Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji, a 23-year-old research assistant who died from injuries sustained in a University of California, Los Angeles, chemistry laboratory fire. Since then, laboratory scientists as well as health and safety professionals have tried to improve laboratory safety at various institutions. In doing so, “we should be giving evidence-based guidelines” rather than defaulting to adding more compliance forms, says Michael Blayney, executive director of research safety at Northwestern University. But experts say they’ve been hampered by a lack of research on the subject. The dearth of data is not because people lack motivation to study safety. “Not to sound too noble or pompous, but I think you’ll find people in this field are working because we want to make industry and academic labs safer, because we want to save lives,”