Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) registration is required prior to use of ‘biohazards’ in research. Under UMaine policy, ‘biohazard’ includes recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules (including plants), biological materials/biospecimens (human and animal blood, bodily fluids, and/or tissues), infectious agents* or select agents/toxins. (*The University of Maine has defined “infectious agents” as all bacterial, parasitic, fungal, viral, and prion, included within Class 2 or higher classes; See Appendix B of NIH Guidelines.) For guidance on whether your biohazards work requires IBC or other approvals, view the IBC Protocol Submission Decision Tree
