ABSA Update – January 2025

Dear Colleagues,

I am truly honored and excited to serve as ABSA International’s President! I acknowledge the faith our members have placed in me, and I am committed to working with the Council, Team Leads, Committee Chairs and Members, and the dedicated ABSA Membership to support biosafety and biosecurity professionals across the globe. I also promise to carefully consider and implement initiatives that strengthen our association.

The continued growth and success of ABSA International would not be possible without the dedication and energy of our member volunteers. We are an international force of over 1,900 members, each with unique knowledge and strengths. I believe this diversity will be critical to addressing the biosafety and biosecurity challenges of the future, as it provides the elements needed for innovative solutions.

To support our members and the community at large, ABSA International has committed to providing opportunities for professionals to engage, learn, and give back. This past year two new platforms were introduced – OnBoard and Howspace – to provide swift, modern access to our processes and documents. Once fully implemented, members will be able to engage and create communities centered around common interests. Additionally, 870 in-person and virtual attendees and 47 vendors participated in the 2024 ABSA International Annual Conference, indicating a need for our professional skills. To meet this need, ABSA International has added an additional Principles and Practices in Biosafety course, created new webinars and website content, and invested in ABSA International’s journal, Applied Biosafety. ABSA International also recommitted to supporting biosafety and biosecurity across the globe, attending multi-national and international events as we emerge from the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic.

ABSA International leadership continues to be guided by a Strategic Plan, and it has carefully selected several “mega issues” to address in the near term. In short, they include increasing efficiency and communication between committees and members, exploring ways to manage change and reduce barriers to participation, and creating a welcoming space where members can grow and contribute at each stage in their careers. New ideas, creative conversations, and continued outreach will allow ABSA International to position itself ready to respond to all opportunities that enable safe and secure research with biological materials.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to ABSA International’s volunteers, especially those that commit to the extra effort involved with being a Committee Chair or Team Lead. We are truly only as strong as our volunteers, and I encourage all members to consider where their talents can make a difference! I recognize we are all busy, but remember that actions as simple as completing a survey, nominating yourself or a peer for an office, and voting in our annual election are all tangible and meaningful ways to contribute.

Finally, please allow me a moment to express my gratitude to the ABSA International office staff for their endless support. I also thank Luis Ochoa Carrera and Rebecca Moritz for their support over the past year as I prepared to step into this formidable, but welcome, role.

Warmest regards,

Sherry S. Bohn, PhD, MSL, CBSP
President, ABSA International

Chair: Niki Drazenovich
Vice-Chair: Dana Buckley

ABSA members currently have 11 quizzes available online for CM points and additional quizzes in development covering 2 Applied Biosafety Journals, 2 Anthology books (VIII and VIX), and the Bradford University-Preventing Biological Threats book. These quizzes are low-cost and can be located on the website at https://absa.org/online-education/.

Co-Chairs: Amy Ryan and David Cavallaro

The Bylaws Committee continues to edit and review the Policies & Procedures of various teams and committees. Two P&Ps were reviewed since the last report. The committee asks that all teams and committees perform an annual review and submit any changes to the ABSA International Office. The office will forward the changes to the committee for review and approval.

Co-Chairs: Geoffrey K. Phillips and Ray Scheetz

The PCC has completed a successful offering of courses at the 2024 ABSA International Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

Twenty-two in-person courses were offered as well as 8 virtual courses. All were well attended and received.

An after-action review was conducted onsite by the facilitators. Facilitators assigned to each course summarized the value of the course and commented on any technical and logistical issues.

Some recommendations were made for future conference courses based on feedback.

Chair: Bob Ellis

The BBTC^® will be held August 4-8, at the Hilton Fort Collins in Fort Collins, CO. Please see the BBTC home page announcements for the BBTC description and registration information.

Chair: AJ Troiano
Vice-Chairs: Colleen Kovacsics and Susan Vleck

The Scientific Program Committee is excited to begin preparations for the next conference. Reflecting on the 67th Annual Biosafety and Biosecurity Conference in Phoenix, AZ, we had 53 speakers across keynotes, invited speakers, platform presentations, and the highly anticipated return of dual-track sessions. This robust schedule of presentations allowed more information to reach our community, including over 850 attendees representing 42 countries. In addition, 28% of the talks were presented by the international community, reflecting a key strategic goal of ABSA International.

In the short term, we will be adding new members to the committee and welcoming new leadership to the committee. We would like to thank AJ Troiano for his dedication and hard work leading the SPC over the years and welcome Colleen Kovacsics as SPC Chair along with Susan Vleck and Sunny Hoffman as Co-chairs. The SPC will be working through the conference survey feedback to identify areas of opportunity for this upcoming year. SPC is also collaborating with the International Engagement Committee to develop guidance on preparing abstracts and platform presentations that will benefit our entire community. The SPC is currently in the process of soliciting keynotes for the 2025 conference and welcomes all suggestions for potential topics and/or speakers from our biosafety community.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 conference and provided feedback for the SPC, we are already looking forward to next year!

Chairs: Eric Lewis, Endah Sulistijo, Ericka Pearce, and Rhonda O’Keefe

The Distance Learning Committee continues to develop, review, and offer new and ongoing webinars for ABSA International members’ professional growth. As of December 16, 2024, 18 courses have been completed, reaching over 1,100 participants. We have exciting webinars scheduled for 2025. Topics for webinars under development include field biosafety; AI for biosafety and biosecurity professionals—101 level; and Arthropod Biosafety.

We recently released the Biosafety Cabinet Basics On-demand module! Visit https://absa.org/online-education/ for more information on this module and the many webinars available. Course lists are updated routinely. Please invite your colleagues, nonmembers, or other professionals to attend. If you are interested in teaching a course or know a subject matter expert in a particular field of interest to biosafety or biosecurity professionals, or if you have general comments that you’d like to share with the DLC, please contact the ABSA International office at education@absa.org. We welcome your involvement and feedback.

Chair: Robin Tobias
Vice-Chair: Daniela Didier

The Public Relations and Marketing Committee has been actively partnering with the ABSA Public Relations Firm and will continue applying information learned through this collaboration to the existing Media Toolkit project in progress. We continue to work on Biosafety and Biosecurity Month as an opportunity for our community to recognize, reflect, promote, and advocate for biosafety and biosecurity in research and healthcare. Our goal for the upcoming year is to increase our outreach efforts and encourage participation in the event by proactively promoting the Biosafety and Biosecurity Achievement and Outreach awards. We continue working on projects that frame biosafety, biosecurity, and biological research in a positive way. We are interested in learning more about public relations and marketing as a whole and applying this information to new initiatives. Another topic of interest is the incorporation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in publications and marketing materials.

Coeditors-in-Chief: Barbara Johnson and Karen Byers

Applied Biosafety has received over 20 manuscripts in response to the call for papers for the Special Issue, “Biosafety and Biosecurity for Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs) and Dual-Use Research of Concern (DURC).” Manuscripts include reviews, brief reviews, original research articles, and commentaries. A celebratory expanded issue containing all the accepted Special Issue manuscripts will be published in 2025 in commemoration of Applied Biosafety’s 30th year in publication. Each 2025 issue will be specially branded in recognition of APB’s 30 years in publication. Volume 30, Number 1 will include a retrospective written by the Editors highlighting APB’s founding, history, milestones, and growth over the years. In mid-December, Mary Ann Liebert (MAL) became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sage. Sage is a well-resourced, international publishing house, and MAL will continue to publish APB. Before being published by MAL, APB was published by Sage. Given our prior positive experience with Sage, we are confident the journal will continue to meet ABSA International’s goals with our current publishers and their new parent company.

Chairs: Dan Eisenman and Shalaka Kotkar

The goal of the group is to review the survey results received following the updates and review the assessment questions to ensure the materials and questions are aligned.

Chairs: Esmeralda Meyer and Karon Floyd

During this period, the ABSA Council approved the merging of the TRR and the Legislative Committee into the Technical Review, Legislative and Regulatory Committee (TRLR). The Vice-Chairs of both subcommittees, Karon Floyd and Esmeralda Meyer worked with the Technical Team Leads and the ABSA International office to draft the P&Ps and the Charter. Membership to the TRLR will start on January 1, 2025.

Chairs: Marian Downing and Susan Harper

The EIDC posted updates and new resources for most Toolboxes as new information becomes available. During this quarter, the EIDC contributed to the discussions initiated by the ABSA Council on the maintenance and update of the Risk Group Database. The main references of this database were updated before the ABSA annual conference. The Committee will continue these discussions with the new ABSA President and the leadership.

Betsy Gilman Duane and Marian Downing participated in the bi-monthly call with OSHA and made progress on setting the priorities to continue this partnership. The Infectious Disease Standard is currently with the Office of Management and Budget; after the "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" is published, the public (e.g., ABSA) will be able to make comments.

On the membership front, the EIDC is reviewing prospective candidates to become members of the EIDC in 2025, and we would like to welcome Dr. Susan Harper as the new Vice-Chair of the EIDC. Dr. Harper has been a member of the EIDC for a few years and we appreciate her willingness to serve on this committee. Esmeralda Meyer is stepping down as Vice-Chair, after several years of service.

We continue to request feedback on the value of the Toolboxes to the ABSA professionals. Please send your comments and suggestions to info@absa.org with the subject header: EIDC Feedback.

Chairs: Pat Condreay and Paul Jennette

There will be three sessions of PPB^® in 2025, in March, May, and July. The March session is filled, and the other sessions are filling quickly.

Chairs: Dee Zimmerman
Vice-Chair: Kalpana Patel

Member Resources Committee (MRC) welcomes Kalpana Patel as Vice-Chair of the MRC. Betsy Weirich has stepped down as Vice-Chair to pursue travels and enjoy retirement, we thank Betsy for sharing her expertise over the last two years with the ABSA membership through the MRC.

The ABSA International Phoenix New Member reception was a huge success, the introduction of the Biosafety Bingo compliments of MRC Vice-Chair Kalpana Patel and Julie Savage. Everyone was engaged and prizes were given to the first five attendees completing their bingo cards. The drawing for five ABSA shop gift certificates was very much appreciated. The MRC goals are to support ABSA memberships as they develop their professional careers in biosafety. Members entering the profession will find guidance on courses and webinars that will enhance member careers. The MRC looks forward to the coming year and is open to suggestions from the membership for opportunities to broaden the members’ experience.

Treasurer: Heather Blair
Vice-Chair: Andrea Vogel

The Finance Committee is the checks and balances of the budget.

Every month the committee reviews and compares the month and year financial summary report to the previous month and year’s financial summary report to make sure ABSA International is staying in line with the approved budget for the year. We look for trends and potential outliers. This quarter the Finance Committee reviewed and voted on the Team and Committee budget requests for 2025, went over the proposed treasury report to be presented to the members at the ABSA Conference, and reviewed the 2025 proposed budget.

Chair: Matt Anderson
Vice-Chairs: Amanda Haley and James Pharr

The E-communications Committee would like to thank all the ABSA Conference attendees who stopped by the selfie booth in the Exhibitor Hall and took pictures with friends and colleagues and shared them on social media. We had our best involvement yet from members and vendors and we received numerous compliments on the buttons and stickers given out. We are finalizing some exciting changes to the ABSA website homepage which include adding “Quick Link” buttons to popular areas of the site and reorganizing the elements on the homepage to improve visual appeal and navigation from various devices. We will also be overhauling the existing site navigation menus for ease of use as well. Look out for these changes to be implemented in January or February. Finally, an email will be going out soon to all committee chairs, task force leads, and team leads asking them to review content on the website associated with their groups and submit requests for changes to our committee. Thank you in advance for assisting us in improving the information and resources available on the website.

Lead: Shoolah Escott
Co-Lead: Crystal Fortune

The SIG’s poster titled “Ergonomic, Green and ADA Considerations for Renovation and Construction” was presented at ABSA’s 67th Annual Biosafety and Biosecurity Conference in Phoenix. The authors were: Drew Fayram, Merrick; Robert Glaser, NYS PHL; Crystal Fortune, MT PHL; Michael Marsico, APHL; Marian Downing, Consultant; and Shoolah Escott, Biosafety Trainer. Marian and Shoolah were the poster presenters. We had a lot of interest in it. The SIG is submitting the poster for the APHL Annual Meeting.

Susan Harper did a presentation titled ABSA’s Perception on Risk Management in Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories at the annual American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD) Lab Safety Committee meeting on October 12th. She covered the basics of risk assessment and management and provided them with a list of references. The feedback from the committee is that it was thorough and informative. We are already looking at doing another presentation next year.

We are planning to do two webinars on mobile labs this winter. The first will cover preparing for the next event and describe the types of mobile labs and BSL-3 certification. The second will cover recertification and bioBUBBLE. Finally, we are looking into doing a webinar during Biosafety Month on how public health and clinical laboratories can best communicate with hospital infection control to avoid biosafety exposures.

Chair: Rhonda O’Keefe

The CMB welcomes new members, Mark Campbell and David Burcin and says farewell to our past Chair, Hallie Hoskins. The CMB develops the continuing education criteria necessary for Certified Biological Safety Professionals (CBSP[ABSA]s) and Registered Biosafety Professionals (RBP[ABSA]s) to maintain their certification and administers the recertification process. The criteria for serving on the Board include being an active status CBSP and/or RBP and a current ABSA member.

The approved CM applications are listed on the ABSA’s Professional Development Activities page. The CMB has started to review the re-credentialing CM worksheets for the 2020-2024 cycle. The CMB strongly encourages the credentialing applicants to: 1) continuously work on receiving re-credentialing activities during the 5-year cycle; 2) submit the CM applications for activities as soon as they occur; 3) download the new CM worksheet at the beginning of your 5-year period and fill in activities as you complete them; 4) save all your supporting documents as they occur in case of an audit.

Pay maintenance and/or recertification fees as well as upload completed CM worksheets here. Deadline for submission is February 1.

Chair: Will Pinard

TTR collects, manages, and makes recommendations for tools and resources that would be useful for biosafety professionals around the world. These resources are collated on the ABSA website featuring a search function, keywords, the origin, and the type of resources. The committee uses evaluation and review methods for new incoming resources that include ratings for usability, applicability, keywords, etc., for incorporation into the database. The committee is now focusing on acquiring high-quality international resources; and assessing and extending its review capacity in languages other than English, in addition to their current focus on domestic/English resources. The committee is always looking to the ABSA community to receive new resources and will keep focusing on evaluating and incorporating national and international resources. TTR webpage: absa.org/tools-resources/.

Chairs: Paul Meechan and John Henneman

The CEB continues to meet monthly to review applications for certification as Registered Biosafety Professionals (RBP) and Certified Biological Safety Professionals (CBSP). As a reminder, February 1, 2025, is the deadline for submitting CBSP exam applications.

Submitted by: Marian Downing

APHL is preparing to post an RFP (Request for Proposals) for their new “Microcredential” program. This program has the goal to develop and enhance a pipeline for those seeking to further their knowledge, skills, abilities, and careers in biological safety and biosecurity and to strengthen overall laboratory systems by providing trainings for biosafety professionals. Currently, the 3 tracks include: Introduction to Biosafety Basics, designed for students and entry-level professionals; Biosafety and High Consequence Pathogens, with emphasis on National Polio virus Containment and Select Biological Agents and Toxins Requirements, and Biosafety in High-Containment Biological Laboratories & ISO Biorisk Management Standards. These microcredentials will involve completing several courses and may include college credit. Proposals may be submitted by academia, individual SMEs, private industry, consulting companies, etc.

Also, in October, comments were submitted to CLIA from the CLIAC (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee) Workgroup, which is charged with providing input to CLIAC for consideration in making recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the potential additions to the CLIA regulations and the need for solutions that will improve the safety of laboratory professionals. Comments centered around the use of risk assessments in clinical labs for equipment and procedures, biosafety considerations when purchasing new testing equipment, addition of competencies for professionals, etc. If added, these measures would be a major change to the current CLIA oversight considerations.

In August, APHL published a Risk Assessment Guide Testing Raw Milk Samples That May Contain Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. This publication involved input from many different industries and government agencies and was an early guidance document for dealing with an emerging pathogen of concern in the U.S.

Available for Purchase for a Limited Time:

• 67th Annual Biosafety and Biosecurity Hybrid Conference
• 3rd International Biosecurity Virtual Symposium
• 24PDC7V. Intro to the Science and Biosafety of Cell and Gene Therapy Clinical Trials
• 24PDC1V. Plant and Arthropod Biosafety Basics
• 24PDC2V. Infectious Substance Shipping Program Management
• 24PDC6V. Disposal of Animal Carcasses
• 18. Gain-of-Function Research and PEPP

Other Upcoming Opportunities for Professional Development Include:

• Q&A Infectious Substance Shipping Webinar April 2025
• Fundamentals of Microbiology and Infectious Disease May 2025
• Concepts of Virology June 2025
• Large-scale Biosafety July 2025
• Molecular Biology 101 August 2025
• Virus-based Gene Transfer Vectors September 2025

On-demand:
Advanced Biosafety Training Series
Basic Disinfection On-demand Module
Basic Biosafety On-demand Module
Biosafety Cabinet Basics On-demand Module
ABSA Learning Verification Opportunities

For questions related to courses, please email education@absa.org.
For additional courses and events, please visit ABSA International’s calendar.

Thanks to the Public Relations/Marketing Committee, ABSA has promotional videos for ABSA and our ABSA Conference. The videos can be found on the ABSA website and on ABSA International’s YouTube channel at. Also, ABSA’s YouTube channel has video interviews of conference presenters and keynotes. Feel free to share the video, use it in presentations, or link to it from your websites.

Through Member Clicks, not only can you access the Members’ Directory; you can update your contact information under the “My Information” link; view events you have registered for under “My Events”; access your educational credits under the “My Professional Development” link; and print a copy of past invoices under “My Transactions.” You can also purchase ABSA International publications, shirts, and other products.

The Job Board allows employers to connect with biosafety and biosecurity professionals and has opportunities available to continue to advance their career. Employers who post a position will gain access to some of the top professionals in the biosafety and biosecurity field. If you would like to post to the Job Board or find out more about the opportunities, visit the ABSA Job Board page.

The Anthology of Biosafety series is now available at no cost to ABSA members!
The 14-book series published between 1999 and 2015 addresses biosafety in different settings:

I: Perspectives on Laboratory Design
II: Facility Design Considerations
III: Application of Principles
IV: Issues in Public Health
V: BSL-4 Laboratories
VI: Arthropod Borne Diseases
VII: Biosafety Level 3
VIII: Evolving Issues in Containment
IX: Exploring the Performance Envelope for BSL-3 and BSL-4 Laboratories
X: Animal Biosafety
XI: Worker Health and Safety Issues
XII: Managing Challenges for Safe Operations of BSL-3/ABSL-3 Facilities
XIII: Animal Production and Protection – Challenges, Risks, and Best Practices
XIV: Sustainability

ABSA Members must be signed in to download individual chapters of interest.

In alignment with our core organizational values, ABSA International (ABSA) encourages positive connections between biosafety professionals, scientists, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the public. It is our organization's policy to administer all activities without discrimination on the basis of age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, marital/familial status, and veteran status. These practices extend to all aspects of ABSA’s activities and to all roles within the association (e.g., member, ambassador, employee, mentor, sponsor, and vendor).