Health and Safety in the Viral Immunology Unit

All staff, within the Viral Immunology Unit are under jurisdiction of the University of Oxford and the NDMRB. Therefore, you must adhere to the health and safety rules of the University of Oxford as well as the NDM Research Building local rules.

1. COSHH Risk Assessments

The entirety of the NDMRB groups have compiled there COSHH RA into one spreadsheet which can be found here.

A copy of the relevant RA can be found on the first shelf in the first bay of the laboratory, it is kept up-to-date by laboratory management. Group members must sign the declaration form to confirm they are read and understood the RA and will comply with the necessary precautions.

Specifically Respiratory Medicine Staff will be working routinely with the following RA:

• Biological COSHH RA:
•  Human Immunodepressive Virus (HIV)
• Substances COSHH RA:
• Follow this link for the list of COSHH forms and COSHH spreadsheet

2. General Risk Assessments

Work in Viral Immunology is covered by the following RA:

• VI-RA-001: Coulter counter - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-002: Counting cells manually - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-003: Ethidium Bromide DNA stain - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-004: Flow Cytometry Assays - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-005: Freezing cells - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-006: HIV p24 kit - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-007: HIV stock growth - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-008: IFNa induction - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-009: Luminex Assays - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-010: Magnetic depletion of cells - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-011: PBMC Isolation from Cones - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-012: PBMC Stimulation - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-013: PureYield Plasmid Midiprep - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-014: Radiation routine swabs - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-015: Short term culture PBMC - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-016: Reverse Transcriptase Colorimetric Assay - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-017: Transfection of 293T cells - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-018: Transformation of B cell lines - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-019: IFNg ELISPOT - view the associated COSHH overview 
• VI-RA-020: FPLC Equipment
• VI-RA-021: Dissecting Human Tissue

3. Genetically Modified Organism Risk Assessment

As part of the The Genetically Modified Organisms (Contained Use) Regulations 2014, an appropriate RA approved by the NDMRB Genetic Modification Safety Committee is required before any work or storage of genetically modified organism (GMO) can commence.