Institutional Biosafety Committee

UMass Dartmouth is committed to ensuring the safe storage, handling, and disposal of potentially harmful biohazardous materials used for research and/or instructional purposes. The Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) is a university-wide review body responsible for the review, approval, and oversight of activities involving biohazardous material conducted at or by UMass Dartmouth. The IBC ensures research is conducted in compliance with the NIH Guidelines, Federal, State, and Local laws and regulations. 

The biohazardous materials which the IBC currently oversees include:

• Recombinant DNA (rDNA) or transgenic plants and animals.
• Infectious agents, pathogenic or infectious microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi/yeast, etc.), parasites, nucleic acids (prions), toxins, or any agents of unknown pathogenicity to humans, plants, or animals.
• Research involving cell lines, artificial chromosomes, plasmids, cosmids, and genes (drug-resistant, oncogenic, parasitic, markers/reporters, supplementary, sex-linked, or defective).
• Materials derived from humans, animals, or insects (blood or blood component(s), tissue(s), stem cell(s), and other bodily fluids); Tissues or cells treated with pathogenic agents, transfected or treated with rDNA, or potentially infectious.
• Federally-regulated Select Agents, experiments with Dual Use Research of Concern potential.
• Xenotransplantation.
• Nanomaterials.

The IBC communicates and coordinates the review and approval of research projects with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and the Institutional Review Board (IRB), as necessary. The IBC also identifies biosafety education and training to all faculty, staff, and students involved in the use of such materials, as necessary.