Biosafety & Biosecurity

Open science aims to make scientific research more accessible, reliable, and efficient to all, including life scientists in academia, industry, and the community. Despite the importance of open science, openness may lead to accidental misuse of scientific research and its outcomes. For example, emerging technologies used in biological research may pose risks to scientists or the community if proper safety procedures are not fully followed during laboratory procedures and/or transport of biological samples. Adoption of biosafety and biosecurity is key to reducing potential misuse of scientific research, while reducing any associated risks from mistakes.

This JOGL Africa session seeks to highlight the importance of implementing biosafety in projects and ensuring compliance with established good practices. The programme will start with an overview of biosafety and biosecurity by an iGEM lead, sharing 10 years experience in the field, and how iGEM teams approach biosafety and biosecurity. This will be followed by a panel discussion, involving various biosecurity experts from Africa CDC, Synbio Africa, and community projects, on ensuring safety and compliance in life science projects in Africa.

Confirmed Speakers

Dr. Talkmore Maruta, Africa CDC
Dr. Maruta is a Public Health Medical Laboratory Scientist with a BSc (Hons) Degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences, Masters in Public Health (MPH), Masters Business Administration (MBA) and PhD in Public Health and currently studying for a Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy. He has regional and international experience in laboratory system strengthening, disease surveillance, epidemic preparedness and response and biosafety and biosecurity. At Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Dr Maruta coordinates the Africa CDC Regional Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative whose goal is to strengthen the biosecurity and biosafety systems of African Union Member States to comply with international regulations including the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 and the GHSA action packages (APP3). He currently Co-Chairs the APP3 with Uganda.

Tessa Alexanian, iGEM Foundation
Tessa Alexanian is a Safety and Security Program Officer with the iGEM Foundation. She used to spend her days wrangling robots to do biological engineering, but now spends more time wondering how to get biologists to engineer the right things. At iGEM, her work focuses on creating incentives and programs that encourage synthetic biology development that is responsible, responsive, safe and secure. Tessa co-founded East Bay Biosecurity Group, instigated the Catalyst collaborative biosecurity summit, and was the 2020 Foresight Fellow in Responsible Biotechnology and a 2017 iGEM delegate to the BWC.

Sandra Matinyi, SynBio Africa
Sandra Matinyi is an Immunologist, Microbiologist, and a Project Planning and Management professional. She is a Global Bio Summit Fellow 2021 and is the current Chairperson, Executive Committee of SynBio Africa. Previously, Sandra worked as a Quality Assurance Specialist with AGHPF, where she was in charge of the Biorisk Management component of the projects. She is an International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA) certified professional - Biosafety and Biosecurity, and a certified National Biosafety and Biosecurity trainer for Uganda where she has conducted numerous trainings on Biosafety and Biosecurity for various groups of people. She also works as a Project Officer, Global Catastrophic Biological Risks Initiative (SBA-GCBRI) – an Initiative by SynBio Africa focused on building Africa’s capacity to prevent and manage Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs).

Dr. Sarah Ware, BioBlaze Community Bio Lab
Dr. Sarah Ware is the founder of BioBlaze Community Bio Lab in West Chicago, Illinois (US). BioBlaze is the first and only non-profit molecular biology lab in Illinois that is open to the public. Sarah has also founded two other molecular biology labs and teaches biology, genetics and humanities at Benedictine University and College of DuPage in the Chicago area. She is currently involved in a joint project on biosafety and biosecurity with JOGL in collaboration with iGEM.