The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is moving toward a broader, risk-based biosafety framework that could affect research governance, documentation, training, incident reporting, and laboratory operations across NIH-funded institutions. The draft expands biosafety oversight from a relatively narrow focus on recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid research to a much broader range of biological hazards.
Organizations should begin evaluating how expanded biosafety oversight may affect their programs and resource needs. Under the current NIH Guidelines, Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBCs) are largely associated with oversight of recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid research. The draft policy broadens the scope of biosafety oversight, which would likely increase the IBC’s responsibilities.
