Biosafety & Biosecurity Month

Join Environmental Health & Safety throughout October for Biosafety & Biosecurity Month. This year’s events will feature updates on federal life sciences policies, opportunities to connect with vendors, and guidance on navigating regulatory and permitting requirements.

Events are open to members of the University of Tennessee research community. See event details below.

Upcoming Changes to Federal Life Sciences Policies

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the kickoff of Biosafety & Biosecurity Month at UT.

This session provided an overview of two recently published federal policies affecting life sciences research:

• NIH Draft Biosafety Policy for Research Involving Biohazards
• U.S. Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research

The presentation covered key elements of both policies, including:

• Summaries of each policy
• Changes from preceding policies
• Timelines for policy compliance

The session was developed for principal investigators conducting life sciences research involving biohazards and department heads who oversee these PIs.

Watch the Presentation

View the Slide Deck

Upcoming Changes to Federal Life Sciences Policies

Tabling Event with Vendors

Time: 1:00–2:30 p.m.
Location: Mossman, 3rd Floor
Refreshments will be provided.

Stop by for a Biosafety & Biosecurity Month tabling event featuring vendors and an opportunity to connect with Environmental Health & Safety.

This could remain a shorter section since there is less event information.

So You Need a Permit…

Navigating VS, PPQ, and BRS Regulatory Pathways

Time: 9:00–11:00 a.m.
Location: ANRB 124
Refreshments will be provided.

Confused about APHIS permits? Not sure whether your research falls under VS, PPQ, or BRS oversight?

Join us for an overview of federal regulatory pathways affecting agricultural, biological, and biotechnology research.

During this session, we’ll discuss:

• How to determine which APHIS program applies to your work
• Common permit and compliance pathways
• Resources that can simplify the application process
• Practical tips for avoiding delays and regulatory pitfalls

Special Guest

Rachel Baxter
East Tennessee APHIS Inspector

Rachel will provide additional insights into APHIS programs and current regulatory considerations.

Whether you’re planning a new project or managing an existing one, this session will help you navigate the permitting process with confidence.

In order to promote positive safety culture in UT labs, the Lab Safety Committee is continuing the Lab Safety Culture Awards Subcommittee. The theme for the second category of awards of 2026 was “Understanding Headspace and its Impact on Safety.” Quarter 2 awards were distributed in August 2026:

1st place: Emmanuel Adewuyi – Graduate Research Assistant, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering | Click here to view submission!

2nd place: Garrett Miller – Graduate Research Assistant, Nuclear Engineering | Click here to view submission!

3rd place: Chathuddasie Amarasinghe – Graduate Research Assistant, Physics | Click here to view submission!

Congratulations, winners!

New lab safety culture award categories will be announced quarterly. Submissions are open to everyone involved in research or working in a lab, shop, or maker space at UT. Announcements of new awards are sent through the Lab Safety ListServ, found on flyers around campus, and communicated during events. Please email ehs_labsafety@utk.edu to request to be added to the Lab Safety ListServ if you are not already enrolled.

How to enter:

Email your single submission (one per person or team) to Linda Hamilton at lhamil17@utk.edu

Why Groupspace Matters for Safety

Safety isn’t only about managing physical hazards like equipment, chemicals, or tools. It also depends on how people relate to one another while the work is being done.

Groupspace is the social environment of a lab, the unwritten rules, power dynamics, shared norms, and group habits that shape whether someone raises a concern or stays silent. Most labs don’t choose their Groupspace. It develops gradually through pressure, tradition, and dynamics that were never explicitly discussed.

When Groupspace goes unexamined, it can quietly undermine safety:

• People who see something wrong may not feel it’s their place to speak up
• Power gradients between PIs, postdocs, and students can make silence feel safer than honesty
• Production pressure can become a shared, unspoken expectation that overrides caution
• A culture of “production at all costs” can take hold without anyone ever saying it out loud

By intentionally designing how a lab group relates to one another, we can make speaking up expected and encouraged and make safety something the group owns together.

Submission Prompts

This quarter’s award asks for a hypothetical scenario, your vision of what a deliberately designed, safety-supportive Groupspace would look like. You are not describing a lab that currently exists. You are imagining one built from scratch with full intention.

If you’re not sure where to start, consider:

• What would a new lab member learn, in their first two weeks, about whether it’s safe to speak up?
• What norms, rituals, or habits would the group practice to keep communication honest and low stakes?
• How would the lab handle the first time a junior member raised a safety concern about something a senior member did?
• What would make silence an exception rather than the norm when someone notices a risk?
• How would the group balance deadline pressure with the shared expectation of slowing down when something doesn’t feel right?

Your submission doesn’t need to be a complete blueprint, just a thoughtful, specific picture of one aspect of Groupspace done well.

 Our Goal

The Lab Safety Culture Awards are about learning from one another. By imagining what intentional Groupspace looks like, we surface the ideas, norms, and practices that can make research environments genuinely safer, not just better equipped.

The best submissions will give someone a concrete, usable idea they can bring back to their own lab.