- Provide a safe lab environment as promulgated in UK’s Administrative Regulations 6.3
- Comply with the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules (Applies to ALL researchers at UK)
Lab Safety Requirements
General PI Responsibilities
Lab Door Signs and The Lab Safety Binder-the teal-colored home of the Chemical Hygiene Plan (CHP), Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and more
- Lab door signs contain important hazard and emergency contact information. All exterior lab doors must have a lab door sign and it must be reviewed and dated annually. If there are no changes this can be done by hand. If there are changes, simply create a new sign.
- The CHP is the ~100-page document typically housed in your teal-colored Lab Safety Binder. If you do not have the lab safety binder and do not wish to print this large document, you can save it somewhere virtually as long as all lab members have access. The CHP contains a CHP ID page at the beginning. Record the names of all lab personnel here and be sure to update this annually, then sign and date. If saving the CHP virtually, record that all lab members confirm they have access with a note and dates with signatures on the CHP ID page.
- Lab-Specific Training: This lab-specific training checklist, also found in your teal lab safety binder, must be completed by all lab personnel, then signed and dated. Refresh this training and sign and date again per any changes outlined in Chapter 6 of the CHP. If desired, one checklist can be used with an attached blank page/chart for all the signatures and dates. Keep this checklist and all signatures in your teal lab safety binder, or virtually with your CHP.
- SOPs must be created for particularly hazardous chemicals as stated in Chapters 3 & 10 of the CHP. Where appropriate, a more general SOP can be created for an entire hazard class of chemicals. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories Standard (29 CFR 1910.1450) defines particularly hazardous substances as including select carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and chemicals with high acute toxicity. UK has more stringent criteria for what constitutes a particularly hazardous substance, and this will be defined in the 2020 version of the CHP. A draft of these criteria is outlined in the attached pdf: Draft SOP excerpt from CHP 2020. Use chemical SDSs, Pub Chem’s Laboratory Chemical Safety Summaries (LCSS), fact sheets, and/or UK Environmental Health & Safety Division (EHS) to assist you in writing SOPs. General guidelines are provided on the last page of the SOP template. Print and house these SOPs with your CHP either virtually or in your teal lab safety binder. If your CHP is stored virtually, remember that you must ensure that all lab members have access.
Online Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Training
- The training checklist provided will help you determine which classes are relevant to your lab’s operations and how frequently they need to be repeated. All lab personnel, including the Principal Investigator (PI), must go through this checklist and complete all required training.
- Note that the Hazardous Waste training must be completed in order to gain access to the program UK uses for chemical inventory and hazardous waste disposal, Chematix (AKA E-TRAX).
Hazardous & Non-RCRA Regulated Waste Disposal and the Chemical Inventory System
- Chematix/Etrax is the program UK uses to track your chemical inventory and request a hazardous waste pickup for disposal.
- To get an existing chemical inventory uploaded into Chematix, use the attached excel sheet: Chematix_template to enter the chemical name, CAS number, quantity, etc. An example is provided on the template. When complete, send it to Robert Thomas, trobert@uky.edu.
- For general Chematix help including your lab setup and managing your chemical inventory, see the attached pdf, ChematixUserGuide.
- Chematix is especially useful for tracking Potentially Explosive Compounds (PECs) such as peroxide formers and sending reminders to test or dispose of these dangerous chemicals. Here are some common peroxide formers that must be tested regularly. See the attached pdf: UpdatePEC, for instructions on how to update the expiration date of PECs on Chematix after they have been tested for safety.
- A common example of a non-RCRA regulated waste is ethidium bromide (EtBr). If you use EtBr, fill out and print the attached SOP: EtBrSOP and put it in your teal lab safety binder. The attached pdf: env_fs_ethidium bromide is a factsheet with more helpful information regarding storage and disposal.
- Etrax/Chematix is also used for hazardous waste disposal. See the attached pdf guide: etrax_user_training_manual for details on how to ticket waste for disposal.
Annual Lab Inspections via BioRAFT:
- BioRAFT: UK Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) conducts annual inspections of all UK laboratories. These inspections, along with Radiation and Biosafety, are reported through BioRAFT. See the attached pdf, Bioraft PI Training, for details regarding how to complete your lab setup, enter hazards and lab members and navigate and resolve findings in an inspection report. The PI can fill out the hazard registration or can designate someone else to do it, but the PI will still need to confirm the registration, or else the automated messages will not stop.
- For questions specific to BioRAFT, contact bioraft@uky.edu. For questions specific to your inspection, contact the inspector through the correspondence section within your BioRAFT inspection report.
- During the inspection, a walkthrough of all labs will be conducted, and any safety hazards noted. Please see our general guideline for safety violations to educate yourself on what is required pre-inspection.