Good morning everyone –

For those of you who may not have received news regarding the laboratory safety survey that was designed and circulated by the UC Center for Laboratory Safety, Nature Publishing Group and BioRAFT, please see yesterday’s press release from UCLA Communications.  I have also attached a link to the press release from BioRAFT.  We hope that the research communities at each of your institutions will actively participate in the survey and encourage you to request your Research Offices to send the link to the survey (see below) directly to the researchers at your institutions.  We hope the data collected in the survey will ultimately lead to data-driven improvements in laboratory safety.

Thanks to everyone in advance for your assistance and for your ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of the research community.

Best regards, James

James H. Gibson, PhD, MPH

Director

UCLA Office of Environment, Health and Safety

501 Westwood Plaza, 4^th Floor - MC 160508

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1605

Tel: 310-206-6544

jgibson**At_Symbol_Here**ehs.ucla.edu

UC Center for Laboratory Safety helps launch worldwide survey of researchers

By Steve Ritea | June 14, 2012 Category: Campus News

In its ongoing effort to design policies and programs that protect researchers, the University of California Center for Laboratory Safety today helped distribute a survey to tens of thousands of laboratories worldwide asking for information about their lab safety practices and attitudes.

Working in partnership with the software firm BioRAFT and the Nature Publishing Group, the center played a role in designing the survey, which will gather data that can be used to develop best practices in lab safety.

"This survey is a vitally important undertaking that will help us understand how researchers all across the globe approach lab safety," said James Gibson, executive director of the center and director of UCLA's Office of Environment, Health and Safety. "This goes to the very heart of what our organization does — utilizing scientific methods to gather data that will be analyzed and ultimately help us understand how to make our labs even safer. We're very proud to be working with our partners at BioRAFT and Nature Publishing Group on this important project."

Researchers who do not receive a direct invitation are encouraged to complete the survey at go.nature.com/7LDJlI.

UCLA established the UC Center for Laboratory Safety last year with the mission of improving the practice of lab safety through the performance of scientific research and the implementation of best safety practices. Since then, other universities and researchers have been turning to the center for assistance in establishing lab safety programs of their own.

In the past few years, UCLA has dramatically enhanced its own lab safety programs, increasing the number of inspections in its labs, strengthening the university's policy on the required use of personal protective equipment and developing a hazard-assessment tool that labs must update annually or whenever conditions change.

http://www..bioraft.com/press-release/uc-center-lab-safety-bioraft-and-nature-publishing-group-launch-survey-study-laboratory-safety