Register an Abstract

The Annual Canadian Biosafety Symposium, presented by the Canadian Biosafety Training Partnership (ABSA Canada, CFIA, CREM, ICID, and PHAC), will be held May 31 - June 2, 2009, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The symposium will consist of oral presentations and posters related to advanced concepts in the areas of biosafety and biosecurity. The theme of the symposium series will reflect current biosafety and biosecurity issues as well as regulatory initiatives. This symposium series is intended for all biosafety professionals and personnel involved in biosafety and/or biocontainment facilities.

The goal of the symposium is to provide a venue for the communication and education of advanced and current concepts and issues in the field of human and animal biosafety and biosecurity. This event will also provide networking opportunities among biosafety professionals nationally and internationally. The focus of the meeting will be topics that are relevant to the Canadian biosafety field but that also reflect current international biosafety issues.

The program committee is soliciting abstracts for presentations for this symposium, which are broadly based on the theme of Biosafety. Abstract submission for presentations or papers is open to Canadian and international participants. Instructions for abstract preparation and submission can be found below.

All submissions must reflect original work and must adequately document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. If authors have any doubts regarding whether such overlap exists, they should contact the program chairs prior to submission.

Timeslots are available in three lengths:

• 40 minutes, with 10 minutes question time
• 25 minutes, with 5 minutes question time
• 15 minutes - This session of the symposium will be set aside for those people interested in presenting short case studies or biosafety “lessons learned”. Please select this option if you would prefer to participate in this session.

Topics:

The following broad categories are the focus for the Canadian Biosafety Symposium, however, papers on other appropriate topics that relate to the goals of the symposium will be considered. If you have other topics that you would like to submit for consideration, please send an email message to biorisk@icid.com

• Biosafety
• Biosecurity
• Regulatory initiatives impacting biosafety
• Containment facility design, commissioning, maintenance and operation
• Infectious diseases affecting humans and/or animals
• Containment/laboratory equipment
• Microbiological techniques (e.g. disinfection and decontamination; laboratory-acquired infections)
• Biological risk assessment and communication
• Applied biosafety research

Presentation Guidelines           
Poster Guidelines

Process of Selection

All submissions will be handled electronically through the International Centre for Infectious Diseases (ICID). Submissions for both oral presentations and posters are accepted. 

Abstracts must include the objective, methods, results and conclusion of the study.

The program committee will evaluate all submissions based on quality and relevance. All submissions are held in confidence prior to publication in the symposium proceedings.

Submissions received after the deadline (see “Important Dates” below) will not be considered if a high volume of submissions have been received prior to the deadline.  The request for oral presentations is now closed, however, you can still submit an abstract for a poster presentation. Please submit your abstract to: biorisk@icid.com. 

Where employer, client, or government authorization is needed, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain such authorization prior to submitting the final materials.

Accepted papers will be presented by their author(s) and will be published in the symposium program, along with Author Biographies and photographs. 

Copyright

ICID requires a non-exclusive copyright license for all the papers presented at the conference and for the presentation materials. This includes distribution on the conference CD-ROM and the ICID website.

Important Dates

Final Submission - February 27th, 2009.
Notification of Acceptance - March 27th, 2009.
Final Accepted Presentation Material Submission - May 04th, 2009.

Members of the program committee

ABSA Canada; CFIA; CREM; ICID and PHAC