Biological Hazards and Select Agents

The development of early guidance documents for safe work with biological hazards was driven in part by the efforts of the life sciences community itself and in part by federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. However, developments in the late 1990s through the present day have prompted a dramatic expansion in the generation of specific federal regulations, with the most obvious example being the Federal Select Agent Regulations. This chapter focuses on identifying the most widely accepted guidance documents and key regulations pertaining to research with biological hazards, including guidance on proper containment and handling of biological hazards, importation of biological agents, and safe work with bloodborne pathogens, recombinant and synthetic nucleic acids, and select agents and toxins.