The CDC publishes this guide for high-school science teachers, but it’s useful for university-level researchers as well. Don’t miss the chemical storage and compatibility charts.
Category: Pointers Resources
Pointers Resouces in note index
Biosafety in microbiological and biomedical laboratories
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publish “the BMBL,” the primary reference on biosafety. Compliance with practices in this guide is required for those on NIH grants.
Prudent practices in the laboratory
The National Academy of Sciences publishes the definitive book on lab safety. It’s technically written for chemical labs (hence the full title: Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards) but it’s got substantial information on other hazards such as liquid nitrogen and other cryogens, centrifugation, etc. A large portion of the book is devoted to management topics like how to effectively manage chemical inventories and how to assess the hazards of a chemical you haven’t used before.
A PDF version of the book may be obtained from the National Academy Press. The hardcover book is $99.95, but the PDF is free if you register.
Hopkins requirements for chemical handling
As a part of its compliance with occupational safety regulations, JHU has a set of Standard Operating Procedures for various types of chemicals (e.g., corrosives, compressed gases, carcinogens, flammables, etc.). Following these rules for chemical handling is mandatory.
Make sure you have the campus SOPs bookmarked in your browser if you use hazardous chemicals.
Health, Safety, and Environment guidance
Most people are unaware that the Department of Health, Safety, and Environment has both safety policies and safety guidance documents. The guidance documents provide more detailed technical information than the policies, and despite the name, compliance is mandatory.
Important guidance documents include: G07, on chemical use in labs; G09, on laser pointers; and G11, the escalation protocol for unaddressed safety violations.
How to find Hopkins safety policies
All JHU affiliates are responsible, as a condition of their affiliation, to follow all established safety policies.
JHU safety policies are not hosted directly at a Homewood URL; Hopkins uses a unified system Hopkins Policies Online (HPO), to store all relevant policies.
Use https://hpo.johnshopkins.edu/hse/ as a quick way to find JHU safety policies.
Note that JHU and JHMI share a common set of safety policies–the Johns Hopkins Joint Committee on Health, Safety, and Environment makes them. Several policies, though, are hospital-specific or have sections that are healthcare-only, so read carefully.