Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jobb

Review Article

Laboratory information management system for biosafety laboratory:

Safety and efficiency
Dingzhong Sun, Linhuan Wu ⇑, Guomei Fan
Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Laboratory information management system (LIMS) has been widely used to facilitate laboratory activ-
Received 15 September 2020 ities. However, the current LIMSs do not contain functions to improve the safety of laboratory work,
Received in revised form 25 February 2021 which is the major concern of biosafety laboratories (BSLs). With tons of biosafety information that need
Accepted 9 March 2021
to be managed and an increasing number of biosafety-related research projects under way, it is worthy of
expanding the current framework of LIMS and building a system that is more suitable for BSL usage. Such
a system should carefully trade off between the safety and efficiency of regular lab activities, allowing the
Keywords:
laboratory staff to conduct their research as free as possible while ensuring their and the environment’s
Laboratory information management
system
safety. In order to achieve this goal, the information on the research contents, laboratory personnel,
Biosafety experimental materials and experimental equipment need to be well collected and fully utilized by a cen-
Biological research laboratory tralized system and its databases.
Laboratory safety Ó 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article
Workflow management under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2. Laboratory Information Management System for Biosafety Laboratory (BSL-LIMS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1. Project management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.1. The safety modules for project preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1.2. The safety modules for On-Going project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2. Personnel administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3. Experimental materials management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4. Equipment management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3. Beyond the basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Declaration of Competing Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

1. Introduction
Laboratory information management system (LIMS) is a com-
puterized system that collects, processes and stores laboratory-
generated information. Though, initially, the LIMS was simply
invented for automation of experimental data, it now has the
potential to develop into the digital hub of many laboratory activ-
ities.1–4 Inside the lab, by deeply entwining the LIMS and highly-
automated laboratory equipment, researchers are even able to pro-
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wulh@im.ac.cn (L. Wu).
gram robots (for example, the Biomek series from Beckman Coul-
ter) to execute iterative experiments without any human
operation.5 Outside the lab, many current LIMSs in clinical and
analytical labs have greatly accelerated the process to present
the test results to the customers/testees because of a network-
based reporting system.4 For whatever functions a LIMS actually
possesses, the purpose of the LIMS is to save human labor, and
improve data quality (i.e. accuracy, reliability and timeliness).6
Although the importance of LIMS in a lab was quite low at the
beginning, with the rapid development of computer and network
technologies, the LIMS had gradually evolved to play more diverse
roles and become an irreplaceable part in many labs. The range of

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobb.2021.03.001
2588-9338/Ó 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
Fig. 1. An experimental process in regular research labs presented as Petri Nets.
the users of LIMS has expanded as well, from mostly analytical
labs, to diagnostic biosafety laboratories (BSLs) of specific function
and many general research labs.2,3,7,8
Nevertheless, the functions of all the current LIMSs to our
knowledge do not touch the major concern, i.e. biological safety
and security, of biosafety labs. This is even true for those LIMSs
being currently used in BSLs. Although, through the depletion
and reduction of human factors from certain experimental sec-
tions, the current LIMSs have actually increased the general safety
of the BSLs, these systems themselves do not contain any safety-
and security-control mechanisms. The focus of a traditional LIMS,
whether it is used in BSLs or not, is still to better facilitate lab staff
doing experiments. Even the Electronic Laboratory Notebook
(ELN), a function widely appreciated by BSL staff, was not designed
for but merely happened to suit the working environment of BSLs.
Thus it is a matter of fact that we do not currently have any digital
system that can help us manage the biosafety information. Mean-
while, tons of biosafety-related information are being collected,
stored and transmitted in digital form since 2000, and there is
actually much more digitalized biosafety information than any
other kind of safety information.9 Together, those result in a very
strange situation: while biosafety information itself is highly digi-
talized, there is no centralized system in control to organize the
electronic information altogether and to use it appropriately. Every
piece of information usually stays in the form of isolated electronic
documents in either a local computer or on a local network, and
the search and retrieval of the information are usually complicated.
For example, when a safety document/form/sheet is requested by a
user, the calling, deployment, and returning of the document is
mostly done separately by humans, via a not-well-indexed infor-
mation system and certain unrelated transmission system like
email or even paper-based messaging. Hence, the information
management system in biosafety labs, if they do exist, is ineffec-
tive, inefficient and cannot satisfy the needs of biosafety labs.
Therefore, we believe that a specific information management sys-
tem for biosafety laboratories that is able to improve the safety and
efficiency of these laboratories is a necessity.
2. Laboratory Information Management System for Biosafety
Laboratory (BSL-LIMS)
The laboratory information management system for biosafety
laboratory (or BSL-LIMS in abbreviation) proposed in this paper
is an information management system specifically designed for
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Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34
high level biosafety labs (BSL-3 or -4), or basic research BSLs.
Since BSL-LIMS has its root in BSLs, the focus of the system is
different from the traditional LIMS as how BSLs are different
from regular research labs. Biosafety and biosecurity are
brought up to the front as main concerns in BSL-LIMS with sim-
ilar, if not more, importance as efficiency.10 Biosafety in labora-
tories includes two parts: 1) the safety of people who work in
the lab or are related to the laboratory personnel; 2) the safety
of environment.11 So the aim of BSLs is to keep both the per-
sonnel and environment safe before, during, and after the
experiments. If there are any unavoidable safety risks in the
course of a research project, then the risks must be reduced
to an acceptable and controllable degree before the start of
the project, and be kept this way until the end of it; otherwise,
the project should be abandoned rather than allowed to begin.
Hence, as a part of BSLs, the design of the LIMS has to comply
with the safety standards set by the BSLs. Since biosafety is a
precondition for experiments in BSLs, the focus of the corre-
sponding LIMS shifts from the post-experimental information
(i.e. results) management to the pre-experimental information
(i.e. preparation) management. Even though the overall frame-
work of BSL-LIMS might look similar to the one of traditional
LIMS, the contents of them would be very different.
The information management in a BSL can be divided into four
categories:
1. Project management
2. Personnel administration
3. Experimental material management
4. Equipment management
The whole information management system would involve
large amount of information collection and exchanging within
and between different categories. And many check points need
to be set up for the sake of safety control. These interconnected
information flows and check points form an elaborate network
whose structure can be simplified to Petri Nets,2 with laboratory
data or information as places, and research or audit activities as
transitions. Since the laboratory work flow management has
already been a part of many regular research labs’ information
management systems(2, 3, 7), some modules in these traditional
LIMSs (e.g. the management of samples, materials, or equip-
ment) may be used by the BSL-LIMSs, though new databases
on biosafety information should be added and the some struc-
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
tures probably need to be redesigned in order to meet the new
demands for biosafety and biosecurity.
2.1. Project management
Research projects comprise the body of a research laboratory. In
other words, a research lab is founded so as to support one after
another research project. Hence, the effective management of pro-
jects is the most important job for a lab manager or director. How-
ever, there are two new challenges to meet to get the job done in
high level BSLs, in addition to the challenges raised in regular
laboratories.
First, the high level BSLs are usually multi-purpose research lab-
oratories that do diverse studies. Unlike the diagnostic or analytical
laboratories, whose type of work is usually the same all the time,
the projects within a research lab are usually changing from time
to time. In a diagnostic or analytical laboratory, LIMS can be
adopted to manage the lab activities once the diagnostic or analyt-
ical process has been determined.4 Since the information flows in
these laboratories usually follow a linear structure, once the LIMS
has been installed and connected with automated devices, it can
then take its role as the information hub and quality control center
of the laboratory.6 In contrast, the BSLs or general research labs
change their experimental contents comparatively often, and
therefore no single procedure is enough to keep the laboratory
activities safe and successful. As a result, the LIMS would be down-
played to be an ELN or a data reporter attached to certain piece of
automated equipment,2,8 losing its central position as the informa-
tion hub of the lab, unless we can expand its functions.7
Fortunately, the new functions to make a LIMS adapt to the BSL
usage are not difficult to achieve. All we need to do is to step back a
bit and take a look at the whole picture. From a principal investi-
gator’s point of view, all research activities follow certain pattern
(Fig. 1.). If we can expand the audit and revision control, which
are the core functions in the LIMS, from of only ‘‘scientific data”
to of all ‘‘data that could affect scientific research”, then we should
be able to create a system that is able to oversee all research pro-
jects in a laboratory. Each of these projects contains three aspects
to be managed: the experimenters, the experiment materials, and
the experiment equipment and facilities. All of these aspects are
affected by the contents of the specific project, and the quality of
preparation for these aspects will predetermine whether the pro-
ject will go well or not.
Fig. 2. An experimental process in biosafety labs presented as Petri Nets.
30
Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34
Secondly, in regular biological labs, the lab director or other
person who is in charge may do an inspection of the experi-
menters, the experiment materials, and the experiment equipment
and facilities at the beginning of the project. However, this kind of
inspection is mostly voluntary and very coarse, and the inspected
contents are usually arbitrary. There is no mechanism to secure
the compliance with certain operation rules before and during
the project, since it lacks nationally or institutionally enforced laws
or regulations. As a result, few lab workers and principal investiga-
tors would attempt to make sure that everything that would be
involved in the project is well prepared before they start the first
experiment; instead, more would try to get started first as soon
as the basic conditions of the project has been met, and the com-
plete fulfilment of the experimental conditions would be consid-
ered to be a parallel task. This mode might work in some of the
regular research labs, but should be avoided by every BSL.
In regular biological labs, since the contagious materials or
other self-propagating materials of potential danger (e.g. gene
drive materials) are excluded from experiments, the causes of acci-
dents are usually non-biological factors. These factors may lead to
very serious consequences, but the range of their influence is
mostly limited to the lab itself and its workers. For instance, cen-
trifugation is one of the common causes in laboratories that can
lead to severe injuries or even death of people.12 Nonetheless,
the damage caused by centrifuge failure can hardly go beyond
the neighboring rooms where the centrifuge locates and usually
only has short-term detrimental effect. In contrast, the leakage of
untreated contagious materials from BSLs can lead to massive
infection far beyond the laboratory workers and last as long as
the chain of transmission has not been broken. Even a leakage from
a teaching lab of low biosafety level may cause infection in a large
community.13 Hence, the BSLs need extra safety measures to coun-
ter the increased risk and lower the rate of accidents, especially the
infection accidents, to the minimum (Fig. 2.). However, there are
several prizes for doing so. First, adding extra authorization and
inspection processes will cost scientists extra time. The increase
in the time that they have to spend on non-research affairs will
lower their efficiency and subsequently reduce the projects’ out-
put. Second, humans are prone to errors and thereby can make
more mistakes when being more burdened. Although the aim of
extra safety regulations/rules is to lower the risk, the increased
amount of precautions also adds the burden on both research staff
and biosafety managing staff, making them easier to get exhausted
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
by the extra safety information that they need to deal with. The
reduced mental and physical state is often a cause of laboratory
accidents.14 Therefore, we need a tireless worker to facilitate
humans, lowering the work load and errors of humans’. And that
is exactly what a BSL-LIMS can offer.
Because the work flows in a research BSL (Fig. 2.) are similar to
the ones in a regular multi-purpose biological laboratory (Fig. 1),
only with some additional safety check points, the BSL-LIMS can
refer to some well-recognized standards (e.g. the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Clinical & Labs Stan-
dards Institute (CLSI)) and/or previous studies2–4,7,15 to design
the modules that are in common to all the biological labs (e.g.
project-template making, the experiment scheduling, sample man-
agement, experimental data collection, results analysis and report-
ing, etc.). In contrast, for the processes that are unique to the BSLs,
there is no previous standard or study that can be used as exam-
ples. Thus, we have to create new modules or update existing LIMS
modules to satisfy the requirements of safety information manage-
ment, based on institutional, national or international biosafety
guidelines.11,16,17 The project management can be divided into
two parts based on their effective stage:
2.1.1. The safety modules for project preparation
After a project proposal has been reviewed and passed by the
relevant committee(s), and got funded, the researchers have to
turn the contents that they outlined in the proposal into a more
detailed and feasible plan. To manage different types of research
activities, the LIMS has to be highly flexible and support user con-
figuration; to limit the complexity of such a LIMS, the system need
to be modularized with customizable modules or reusable tem-
plates.7,18 If this is a project that requires BSL usage, then the rele-
vant biosafety databases and safeguard mechanisms are necessary
as well. Since most of the laboratory texts nowadays are stored in
digital form, it is possible to automatic recognize and extract some
biosafety related information (e.g. certain words, phrases, etc.)
within the texts via using special word processers and relevant
databases. The reviewers or biosafety officers can use the extracted
information to classify the research projects before giving any fur-
ther examination; or, if the laboratory texts are all standardized
and machine-validated, the computer may be able to do the classi-
fication instead of humans, and/or directly warn the researchers
about the flaws of their research plan when they try to submit
it.7 In this module, the biosafety information databases are the
cornerstones that determine the upper limit of data automation,
though the algorithms also matter. The specific set of databases
that are linked to a BSL-LIMS will be determined by the need of
the BSL and its research contents, but the types of databases may
be more or less the same in all BSLs.
a. Microbial information database. The biosafety information on
the microbes, especially pathogens, that will be involved in the
project directly determines the biosafety level that is required to
undertake the project. In terms of pathogenic microorganisms,
many countries have established their own pathogen information
databases to guide the related studies,19,20 while a few have made
legal policies to regulate non-pathogenic organisms of potential
danger as well.21,22 Labs and institutions should keep good aware-
ness to the local/regional/national biosafety guidelines or policies,
and follow these guidelines and policies all the time. Therefore,
whenever such governmental databases exist, labs and institutions
should always refer to them if they need to build their own micro-
bial information databases. These databases will help laboratory
staff to assess the potential risk of certain project and provide sug-
gestion on whether and how to undertake it. For all known patho-
gens or other type of dangerous microbes, the database should
include as much information on their pathogenicity or other
potentially harmful mechanisms as possible. The research staff
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Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34
and biosafety officers can only make sensible judgement on the
project if they know enough about the type of danger that a
microbe poses and its causing mechanism.23 For the microbes
whose risks are unknown, the maximum containment laboratory
(BLS-4) should be used, and some operations that could increase
the potential risk should be avoided. The BSL-LIMS should also con-
tain a reporting function, maybe mandated by national laws, that
can allow individual users to report infectious incidents or newly
discovered biological risks. Only then the national databases of bio-
logical risks can effectively collect new biosafety information, be
continuously updated and provide support to labs in a large area.24
Theoretically, the national database on dangerous microbes should
be open to as many researchers as possible through internet, thus
everyone related could utilize and contribute to the system. How-
ever, due to the serious consequences that could be caused by the
malicious use of this information, every country or region should
decide which open level is most appropriate based on their own
security situation.
b. Technical and methodological information database. The
infection of a human being is a complex process. It is not only con-
cerns the infectious dose (e.g. ID50), but also the state of the con-
tagious material (e.g. DNA or RNA, inactivated strain, genetically
modified strain, etc.), and the actual dose of exposure.11,25 Hence,
the actual level of risk can only be assessed after considering both
the pathogenicity of the microbe and the experimental methods.
The final risk level of an experiment can be higher or lower than
the risk level of the pathogen, depending on the specific experi-
mental method that will be used. A well-indexed technical and
methodological information database powered by a search engine
can be used as a reference system when the researchers are prepar-
ing the protocols. And once they submit it to the laboratory manag-
ing staff, a word processor can compare the keywords in the
database to what it finds in the context, automatically highlighting
or warning the reviewers about the parts that may change the risk
level.
c. Laboratory staff information database. Laboratory staff can be
divided into three main categories based on their duties or types of
work: the research staff, the biosafety staff, and the logistic staff.
Each can be subdivided furthermore based on their skills, positions
or qualifications. A database that contain position, health, reliabil-
ity and skill information on laboratory staff is essential for labora-
tory management. The details of this part will be discussed in
section 2.
d. Experimental material information database. A project usu-
ally consumes a large amount of experimental materials. Sufficient
and high-quality materials are not only the assurance of a success-
ful study but also one of the preconditions for laboratory safety.
The details of how to manage this information will be covered in
section 3.
e. Equipment information database. Equipment is able to pro-
tect experimenters but can be a source of risk as well if being used
inappropriately. We will discuss how to manage its information to
improve the safety during equipment usage in section 4.
2.1.2. The safety modules for On-Going project
Everything, including human beings, that exits a biosafety lab
may contain biohazards. To protect the lab workers and the envi-
ronment, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and safety guideli-
nes should be followed when experimenters are working.
Nonetheless, humans are error-prone and always have a propen-
sity to explore the safety margin in the system to improve effi-
ciency, due to all kinds of pressures.26 As a result, a safety
control mechanism for on-going projects in BSLs is required to pre-
vent incidents from occurring or being exacerbated. The mecha-
nism usually includes at least an electronic surveillance and
detection system, a building automation system with sites that
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
can be remotely controlled, and a health surveillance program for
all lab staff. Currently, the lab safety staff’s stewardship is the only
additional force to safeguard on-going projects. Once the research
staff have started an experiment, they have to rely on their own
good safety practice to keep everything on the right track. The
safety officers may frequently monitor the operations of experi-
menters’, but only communicate with them when they sense a
major risk. In addition, since the focus of experimenters is often
not on safety, and the safety staff could not be in the working area
and monitor every single move of the experimenters, there would
be a lag between the occurrence of a risk and the human detection
of it. This reality calls for a better safety warning mechanism that is
capable of prevention and early detection of incidents.
Automatically-triggered alarms have been widely used in
devices with physical or chemical safety thresholds. The alarms
or likewise warning devices can warn the related laboratory staff
promptly as soon as a potential risk is detected. Thus the lab staff
would have enough time to react and prevent accidents from
occurring or limit the damage of them. However, most biological
incidents are not caused by a single event,26 and biological risks
usually lack threshold values23 (as discussed in 1.1). Therefore, this
warning mechanism based on continuous monitoring of certain
thresholds (e.g. the room pressure, chemical concentration in a
closed area, direction of airflow, etc) are not good enough maintain
the overall safety of BSLs. For the risks caused by complex biolog-
ical operations, this system can do little help.
A more practical safeguarding mechanism for biohazardous
control would be a node-based system, in which the experimental
information will be assembled and submitted to the control node,
and machines and/or humans will analyze the information and
decide if the next action is safe to be taken. Although LIMSs used
in both of the diagnostic/analytical labs and research labs have
some quality control mechanism to prevent invalid inputs into
the next node,4,7 they are still operated in linear workflow and
dealing with single-source data validation. Moreover, since the
LIMSs are built for linear processes, the results of validation would
only go back to the experimenters. The BSLs demands the LIMS to
be able to validate results from multiple sources as well as notify
the safety staff about any sign of risks. Therefore, the control node
in BSL-LIMS should be able to automatically validate results from
different sources and synthesize the results, and instantly notify
both experimenters and safety staff about any anomaly.
Contagious materials and lab workers are the major focuses in
biosafety control. As a result, the continuous tracking of their
movement would help improve the general safety of the lab or
get investigators a better hindsight in accident analysis. For these
reasons, the safety module of BSL-LIMS should be connected with
certain proximity detectors as well. These detectors are able to
monitor human behaviors and/or the movement of important bio-
logical samples. Since most accidents occur during the interaction
between the lab workers and the contagious materials, operations
involving such kind of interactions deserves special attention and
should be monitored as much as possible. The tracking of samples
can be realized by physical tagging their containers with whatever
method that can be turned into electronic signals. For example, sci-
entists have successfully used Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) for item tracking in chemical laboratories.27 The continuous
tracking of humans is more complicated but not impossible. Due to
the health concern and large size of human beings’, the signal gen-
erated by an attached emitter need to be safe for human body but
strong enough to be read by a receiver. An alternative method is to
give experimenters visual labels that can be recognized by a recog-
nition system through cameras. Though direct biometric recogni-
tion is difficult in BSLs due to the body coverage by personal
protective equipment (PPE), experimenters can be distinguished
indirectly by pre-designated visual labels. A color labelling system
32
Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34
might be one of the most effective methods to tell the identities of
experimenters. For example, every experimenter would be
assigned a specific color of his/her own. He/she will always wear
the caps or gowns in this color in the lab. With the information pre-
recorded in a database, his/her identity can be easily confirmed
automatically when the color is captured by a video camera. Nev-
ertheless, the modules described above merely provide a tracking
system that is good for record keeping but will depend on the vig-
ilance of safety staff to perceive abnormal behaviors and prevent
accidents. From this point of view, the movement tracking system
is only the first step towards a real automatic accident preventive
system.27 In the future, digital indicators and input terminals
should be encompassed into the system together with the proxim-
ity detectors. Since the indicators and input terminals installed at
specific control sites, such as the centrifuges and exits, will auto-
matically react to experimenters’ approach and showing them nec-
essary information, experimenters will be able to receive guidance
on their protocol and input data from anywhere in the lab. And the
overall safety of the lab should be improved.
2.2. Personnel administration
Human workers are at the center of all stages of scientific
research activities. They are the main target that we want to pro-
tect but also a major cause of incidents in biosafety labs.14,25 The
laboratory staff, especially those who work with pathogens, has a
much higher rate of acquiring certain infectious diseases compar-
ing with ordinary people.28 Therefore, the effective and efficient
administration of laboratory staff is one of the essential part to
maintain biological safety and security in and outside BSLs.
Distinguished by their roles in biosafety laboratories, the per-
sonnel can be generally divided into three categories:
a. The research staff. People in this group are the true users of
the laboratory. They are in the majority of laboratory staff, but
their population composition would change dynamically because
many of them may be students. Since they are frequently in close
contact with contagious materials, the safety and health conditions
of these people must be examined as often and as rigorously as
possible.23,29 The information on research staff’s skill level and
health condition (which includes both physical and mental health
conditions) should be stored in a database whose contents can be
called by the BSL-LIMS. The database need to be updated fre-
quently, not only by biosafety officers or BSL directors but by
human resource staff and the research staff themselves as well.
The medical history should be attached to the person’s other infor-
mation for lab managing staff to review. Adjustments must be
made when something suggests a person will not be suitable for
the current job any longer, which applies to BSL staff in other cat-
egories as well. The BSL-LIMS should warn the person in charge
when a change in staff information has been made. The alarm will
not be turned off until the issue is resolved, which resembles the
issue submission system in many online custom support systems.
In general, the valid period and access level of an authorization for
a research staff are determined by the contents and period of his/
her project.
b. The biosafety managing staff. The number of biosafety staff is
usually quite small compared with the number of research staff,
but their importance need not be emphasized more. As the over-
seers of the BSLs, they are the last line of defense against laboratory
accidents. All the safety officers who work for BSLs that are above
safety level 2 need (usually state) admitted qualifications, showing
they have received enough training to direct BSLs of that level. The
directors, and sometimes technicians, may be the only safety offi-
cers in basic BSLs (BSL-1 and BSL-2), whilst the containment labs
(BSL-3 and BSL-4) demand a specific team to take care of biosafety
matters. Biosafety managing staff are usually permanent employ-
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
ees of the institution. Theoretically, they have the highest authority
when dealing with biosafety-related matters. Hence, their qualifi-
cation and reliability should be inspected periodically, ensuring
that they are trustworthy and able to rise to the new challenges.
c. The support staff. The support staff are responsible for the
periodical maintenance of the laboratory facilities, equipment
and the lab construction itself.11 They affect the extend of safety
and efficiency of a laboratory, even though they may not spend
as much time in the lab as people in the other two categories.
The administration of internal engineers and/or animal mainte-
nance staff who are permanent or long-term employees of the
institution will be similar to the administration of research staff.
If the cleaning services need to be done by specific cleaning staff
other than the research and biosafety staff, then it is important
to ensure that they have the appropriate qualification, especially
when they are responsible for the waste disposal/transportation.
The qualification and identity of external support staff should be
carefully examined by the safety officers and only perform their
job under the supervision of the safety officers.
The personnel administration in BSLs requires the clarity of the
laboratory jobs and detailed information on each current/potential
worker. The access level to a lab is always depend on the person’s
position and specific job. The laboratory director can only recruit or
assign the specific type of job to a lab worker if the recruit meets
the specific requirements for that job. These requirements are usu-
ally listed in the local and/or national laws and regulations, and
enhanced by the institution’s own rules.11,16,23 The training and
authorization of most BSL staff follows a hierarchical structure
where staff have to finish the training and work in a lower level
BSL for a period of time before they can be allowed to enter a
higher level BSL. This structure works for each categories of per-
sonnel. In addition to the professional skills and physical health,
increased attention has been called to the reliability and mental
health of lab workers.10,14,30 Since biosafety and biosecurity are
never a standalone matter, the institutions with containment BSLs
should work with their local/national government to come up with
a feasible reliability program in order to limit the risk that is
brought by unsuitable job assignments.
The BSL-LIMS will be able to help with the administration of
laboratory staff, especially the management of research staff,
through automatic filtering their information. Since the BSL’s
access control firstly depends on the biosafety level of the lab,
and then the contents of the specific project. A ‘‘machine-human”
cooperated process of access authorization can be established.
Whenever an application for BSL usage has submitted, the com-
puter will evaluate the appliers conditions first according to their
information in the database, comparing it with the requirements
for using that BSL; then, the application will move to the managing
staff for further review if those requirements are satisfied, or it will
go back to the appliers with feedback on which condition(s) is/are
not fulfilled. The system will repeat this process for a second time
with refined requirements of the specific project. By using this
hybrid ‘‘machine-human” co-evaluation model, human labor will
be saved and human error can be reduced.
2.3. Experimental materials management
No research can be carried out without experimental materials,
though the improper use of experimental materials can pose major
threat to the safety of experimenters and the environment. The
general principle of sample management in BSLs is to limit the
access to the contagious samples and keep a good record of its
usage,31 and more details have already been discussed in section
1.2. However, the contagious sample is not the only thing that
can inflict risks upon experimenters and environment. Other types
of materials, including the experimental animals, with poor quality
33
Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity 3 (2021) 28–34
can also put the experimenters at risk. For example, in 2011, a
major incident of laboratory-acquired infection (LAI) of Brucella
spp. occurred in the Northeast Agriculture University, China, which
ended up with 28 people being infected.32,33 The incident was
caused by multiple reasons, but the source of Brucella bacteria
was some uninspected goats used in dissection.
In order to reduce the problems caused by experimental mate-
rials, it is important to set up strict rules on the purchase, storage
and usage of them.6 Though many commercial LIMSs have already
provided functions related to inventory management, the aim of
such modules is to keep the supply chain in the lab uninterrupted.
To fulfil the safety requirements of a BSL, the LIMS need to be
equipped with some safety control mechanism.
The upgraded module in BSL-LIMS will emphasize the quality
control of the experimental materials. Users’ purchase behavior
can be limited by enabling a white or black list of suppliers, and
relevant certifications or/and safety data sheet (SDS) should always
be provided and uploaded to the material information database.
The laboratory staff should keep good records on all of the materi-
als, having their quality indicators, e.g. current state, shelf life, suit-
able purpose etc., in the database. For the materials that could lead
to major accidents, e.g. experimental animals or lysis buffers,34 the
local testing results and evidence of validity must be submitted to
the biosafety officers and stored in the corresponding database
before further approval can be granted.
Last but not least, the BSL-LIMS should have a tracking system
of all biohazardous waste, including the information on the
method of decontamination, the disposal time, and at least one
emergency contact.
2.4. Equipment management
The laboratory equipment can be divided into two categories
according to their expected working period: the permanent or
long-term equipment (or facilities), e.g. centrifuges, biosafety cab-
inets; dispensable equipment, e.g. personal protective equipment
(PPE), disposable pipets and Petri dishes. Since dispensable equip-
ment are only good for one-time usage, which is similar to exper-
imental materials, their management can also refer to the
management method of experimental materials. On the other
hand, the long-term equipment needs to serve the lab for a period
of time and be used now and then. Hence, the equipment has to be
well understood and well maintained for the laboratory’s safety.
While the experimental materials have their SDSs to provide
basic safety information on themselves, all pieces of lab equip-
ment, including the dispensable ones, should also come with sim-
ilar information. This information, along with the other biosafety
related information, will be provided to the research staff through
a client portal to the BSL-LIMS so that they will be able to learn
about which specific lab may satisfy their safety demands. The
maintenance information on lab equipment should also be
included into this database, and periodic maintenance alarm can
be set up to remind the corresponding staff to maintain the equip-
ment, or ban the usage of the equipment before it has been main-
tained. Besides, because of the busy schedule and special security
concern of containment BSLs, a maintenance schedule is always
very helpful for managing the laboratory activities, and an equip-
ment information database that can be filtered by different condi-
tions will surely help to create such a schedule.
3. Beyond the basics
The laboratory safety is a dynamic process that requires contin-
uous inspection and updating rather than a once-for-all action.
Laboratory directors and staff must be aware of that and adjust
D. Sun, L. Wu and G. Fan
to any new challenges while maintaining a high level of alertness
towards all the known risks. These challenges may come from
newly discovered pathogens as well as the application of new tech-
nologies (e.g. gene drive).22,35,36 The BSL-LIMS need to cope with
the changes in every aspect in a lab, thus the system must be easily
expandable. However, a highly expandable and flexible system is
frequently equal to a highly complex one, making every change
in the system unnecessarily time-consuming.18 How to trade off
between the flexibility and the complexity will be a challenging
job for software engineers and product managers. In addition,
proof-of-concept systems need to be established before the appli-
cation of any BSL-LIMS in large scale. Even though the system may
be designed to fit in different niches, unexpected issues would
always be found in the trials.10 Because of the extra safety risks
related to improper management of biosafety information, it is
always necessary to have a newly developed BSL-LIMS tested in
small scale for enough time before dispensing it to more users.
Another aspect that should not be omitted is the data security
in BSL-LIMS. Since the databases used by BSL-LIMS may be public,
internal, or confidential, the system must be able to distinguish the
different type of databases and prevent the leakage of protected
data. From this point of view, it might be best to put the BSL-
LIMS in a local area network (LAN), isolating it from all possible
unauthorized access. If it is impossible, then an intermediate con-
nection like the virtual private network should be set up to encrypt
data transmission between internal and external databases, and
prevent data leakage.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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