About BBP online webinar 'Biosafety out of the ordinary’

During this morning online webinar different “out of the ordinary” biosafety topics will be discussed, including working with Algae (by Pascale Van Rooij, Perseus), the arthropod containment level (by Marco Brustolin, ITM Antwerp) and bacteriophages (by Katia Pauwels, SBB/Sciensano).

• 09:30 - 10:00 Specific risks associated with microalgae (Pascale Van Rooij, Perseus)
  
  Algae are increasingly applied in biotechnology as sustainable ‘factories’ to produce useful compounds. However, today there are no risk group classification lists available for algae to facilitate an appropriate risk assessment. So what should we take into account? Following the recently publication of the COGEM report CGM 2021-01 on taxonomy and risk classification of algae, Pascale will present some highlights.
  
  
• 10:00 - 10:10 Q&A
  
  
• 10:10 - 10:40 Biosafety aspects of arthropod disease vectors (Marco Brustolin, ITM)
  
  Activities using exotic and indigenous arthropods (e.g. mosquito’s, tsetse flies) infected with animal and/or human pathogens, require specific containment measures. The Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp has developed a strong experience in arthropod research. Marco will give us a glance behind the scenes of the insectary.
  
  
• 10:40 - 10:50 Q&A
  
  
• 10:50 - 11:20 Contained use of bacteriophages - risk assessment and biosafety recommendations (Katia Pauwels, Sciensano)
  
  Activities with bacteriophages are on the rise. On the one hand well-characterized bacteriophages are used as as tool for screening libraries of proteins, peptides and antibodies. On the other hand, unknown bacteriophages are isolated from e.g. hospital waste water and explored as alternative to antibiotics.In this session, Katia will focus on the general characteristics of bacteriophages that pose a risk to human and animal health and the environment and the appropriate containment and control measures to be applied.
  
  
• 11:20 - 11:30 Q&A and wrap-up