2021 NEBSA Symposium

Thank you to those who participated - visit the Symposium page

This is a virtual only meeting!!!!

ChABSA Special International Technical Seminar Announcement

Webinar Only 

Dr. Eva Veronesi

of Infravec2

Will present on:

“Biosafety for containment and handling of arthropods: training program using a virtual reality (VR) tool.” 

 

Abstract: 

The design and setup of laboratories intended for the use of pathogens affecting animal and human health and handling of infected live arthropods (e.g. mosquitoes), requires various biocontainment precautions to protect the workers from infection, the environment from pathogen escape, and the quality of our data from cross-contamination as well as data standardization and reproducibility.

Working under biocontainment environment, handling pathogens and infected animals is very demanding and requires certified trainings and deep knowledge on associated risks.

Courses on biocontainment design, waste management, risk assessment, accident response, handling of infected animals including flying insects, is very demanded also due to the lack of qualified trained people able to run these type of courses.

 

Large classrooms of “in-person trainees” attending a course on biocontainment for risk group 3 (RG3) pathogens and infected arthropods handling is not feasible due to the minimum number of people able to access the biocontainment lab and safe measurements.

 

This seminar will discuss a new innovative approach to virtual reality training, where the trainee can follow the procedure online with interactive tools that guide step-by-step to its completion. The objectives of the training are to provide good practice and insights into the assessment of risk, design, operation and management of biocontainment (CL3/BSL3) bound to safely run activities involving RG3 pathogens and handling of infected arthropods.

 Click here to register

DATE:        October 14, 2021

WHERE:   Virtual platform (GoToWebinar)

TIME:         9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Eastern

COST:       Free (on-line registration only) for ChABSA members (login first).

 

Eva Veronesi is a qualified Scientist with more than 25 years of experience in the control and preparedness of infectious diseases. She collaborates as expert on several projects dealing with emerging zoonosis and public health diseases.
During her career, she covered several roles from research scientist, project manager, group leader, student and staff supervisor, private consultant, reviewer for publications, thesis, and scientific reports, and coordinator of clinical trials for vaccine efficacy tests for government, research institutes, universities, NGOs, and private industries.
Eva Veronesi also acts as consultant, project evaluator, and advisor for several organizations (Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, European Food Safety Authority, United Nation, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Atomic Energy Agency) on revising and editing protocols, standard operating procedures, capacity building, and editing guidelines and risk assessments plans for emerging diseases complying with the One Health perspective.
She worked for more than 12 years at the state-of-art “Pirbright Institute” in the UK (2002-2014), where she developed broad expertise on how to design and perform experimental virus infection under biosafety conditions for both small (arthropods) and large (sheep and cows) animals. This conferred her a deep knowledge of working and handling infected animals in unique environments for containment of hazard group 2 and 3 pathogens and the importance of adhering to strict standard operating procedures to prevent pathogen contamination and infection.
During her career, she provided tailored training courses on “Biosafety for containment and handling of invertebrates under biocontainment level 2 and 3” for several bodies and institutions (European Biosafety Association EBSA, Swiss Federal Food Safety Veterinary Office FSVO, Swiss Federal Office of Public Health FOPH, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, IZSV). Eva has also contributed to writing the “Guidelines for the design and operation of containment level 2 and 3 insectaries” for Infravec2 Horizon2020 EC grant.
Since 2019, she is the focal point for EBSA on the “Containment of arthropods”.
In the last seven years (2014-2020), she worked at the University of Zürich (Switzerland) as a group leader and project manager on “Transmission mechanisms and the interactions between viruses and arthropods (mosquitoes and other biting midges)”, and lecturer for undergraduate biologists. During this time, she secured funding from several funding bodies and successfully delivering outputs on time (scientific reports, peer-reviewed papers, Masters and PhD thesis).
She has strong proficiency in three languages (English, French, Italian), and she travelled to more than 35 countries so far.