Abstract
The importance of vigilance within organizations working with high-risk biological material receives increasing attention. However, an in-depth and comprehensive tool, dedicated to increase awareness of potential risks and to assess an organization's current biosecurity vulnerabilities, has not been available yet. We developed the “Biosecurity Vulnerability Scan,” a web tool that identifies biosecurity gaps in an organization based on eight biosecurity pillars of good practice. Although the tool aims primarily to assist biosafety and biosecurity officers, it can also be useful to researchers working with dangerous pathogens, their principal investigators, management, or those responsible for security issues in the life sciences. Results are only stored locally and are provided in an “overview report,” which includes information on relevant risks and control measures. This can support well-substantiated decision-making on strengthening biosecurity measures within a specific organization. With this article, we aim to support institutes to increase their overall security resilience and to improve institutional biosecurity in particular by providing practical recommendations. The Biosecurity Vulnerability Scan is available at www.biosecurityvulnerabilityscan.nl
Highlights
Many organizations, including hospitals, biotechnology companies, and universities, work with biological material
Examples are the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Biosecurity Toolkit manual (7), Sandia National Laboratories Biorisk Assessment Models (BioRAM) (8), the Danish Handbook on Biosecurity (9), the textbook “Preventing Biological Threats” (10), a biosecurity survey carried out in Kenya using lab visits with a standardized questionnaire (11), the CEN Workshop Agreement on Laboratory Biorisk Management (1), the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Biosecurity (12), and the Biosecurity Self-scan Toolkit developed by the Netherlands Biosecurity Office (13)
The findings of the field consultations are used to develop the Vulnerability Scan: a comprehensive, web-based tool, usable by a broad range of organizations that work with high-risk biological material
Summary
Many organizations, including hospitals, biotechnology companies, and universities, work with biological material. Theft or misuse, some of these biological materials can pose a risk to human, plant or animal health. Organizations have a responsibility to take measures to prevent such materials from causing harm. It is thereby important to pay attention to biosafety, which focuses on preventing unintentional release of hazardous biological materials, and to biosecurity aspects, where the aim is to prevent misuse by, for example, intentional release of such materials (1). Laboratory biosecurity measures intend to protect society by preventing the misuse of biological agents, and to prevent misuse of related knowledge and technologies
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