By Meg Villeneuve

Baltimore, MD — Since the attacks on September 11th and the subsequent anthrax threats, many cleanroom operators in the semiconductor, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are looking at ways to protect the technology and medications being manufactured within their facilities.

In a session being offered at CleanRooms East, March 11-13 at the Baltimore Convention Center, Biosecurity for Microbiology Laboratories, Dr. Jonathan Richmond from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hopes to teach laboratory operators how to develop appropriate security measures within their facilities.

“‘Biosecurity’ is a new word in our vocabulary. Its simplest laboratory definition refers to the concept of ensuring that there are appropriate safe-guards in place to ensure that microbiological materials are protected against theft or loss,” Richmond says.

Standards aplenty

So you want to know about standards and cleanroom testing methods? Maybe you haven’t been in the contamination control industry for a long period of time, or maybe you have and your mind needs a refresher course. If that’s the case you shouldn?t miss the full-day session on cleanroom testing and the new standards co-presented by Ken Goldstein and Mike Fitzpatrick.

Now that Federal Standard 209E has been retired (see article in CleanRooms, January 2001) it’s imperative to stay up to date on all standards that affect the contamination control industry. “If anything people who knew more about 209, than the ISO standard need to attend because the sooner they are on board with the ISO document the better,” Goldstein says.

“The class has been designed to be of interest to anyone (concerned with) cleanroom testing,” says Goldstein. “This session will discuss cleanroom testing from a non-biological perspective. It will provide a general overview of the field but will not examine the detailed biological requirements of pharmaceutical facilities in terms of the detection and counting of viable contaminants.”

Other full-day sessions being offered at CleanRooms East include: Planning and Constructing a Contamination Controlled Environment and Contamination Control 101. For the first time at CleanRooms East, representatives from RW Powitz & Associates will discuss Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP).

The session will look beyond the basics and take a scientific approach to compliance monitoring.

“This tutorial will emphasize preliminary tasks for HACCP development; performing a hazard analysis; identifying critical control points; establishing critical limits and monitoring. Corrective action, verification and record keeping will also be highlighted. Various scenarios for food and medical device production will be discussed,” says presenter Bob Powitz.

The exhibit runs on March 12 & 13, 2002 and will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Baltimore Convention Center. Attendees — cleanroom technology users in the semiconductor, microelectronics, life sciences markets — will rub elbows with more than 160 exhibiting cleanroom technology suppliers keyed into the worldwide contamination control market.

Conference sessions will commence on Monday, March 11 and end on Wednesday, March 13.