Sandia’s international peer mentorship program improves management of biorisks

Omar Elahmer, from Libya’s National Centre for Disease Control and a member of the third Twinning class, originally planned to survey researchers and health care workers from throughout Libya about gaps in recent university graduates’ laboratory training. After designing the survey and receiving 450-500 responses, he saw there was a real need for basic biorisk management training. He worked with his twin, Angie Birnbaum, Tulane University’s director of biosafety, to design a basic curriculum based on what the surveys said would be most necessary before starting to work in a lab. Based on this project, the U.S. State Department provided the funding to train 20 Libyan professors to teach biosafety.

“I’ve been fortunate to help a few twins. Their projects have ranged from the development of a project to address a site-specific biorisk need to projects that will serve as the foundation for biorisk management education of all laboratories in that country under their respective ministries. The latter is mind-boggling,” said Ben Fontes, a biosafety officer at Yale University.

Extensive network of biosafety professionals
The projects’ results are only one product of the Twinning program.

“For me, the primary purpose of the Twinning program is to create this large network that’s going to survive for decades,” said Cook, adding, “The networking doesn’t just happen East-to-West. The networking happens within the region as well.”

Having a network of biosafety experts to ask for help when he had questions was critical when Cook started out as a biosafety officer twenty years ago. “Back then, there were no books and very few courses, so most of what I know about biosafety I learned directly from other people,” he said.

By involving biosafety experts from many different institutions, Cook is intentionally making the twin network as diverse and sustainable as possible. Some twins have experience with animal facilities, some with government research facilities and many with universities. This increases the likelihood someone within the network has experience with an unusual issue.

Another important outcome of the program is enhancing the credibility of biosafety as a profession around the world. Illustrating that biosafety can be a career instead of just extra hoops to jump through in the lab can prevent the spread of diseases to researchers and even reduce the chance that terrorists can gain access to hazardous biological agents, said Cook.

Sandia notes that the U.S. Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program has funded five classes of Middle East and North Africa regional twins and two classes of African twins. The fifth Middle East and North Africa regional class will wrap up in mid-November. The first Defense Threat Reduction Agency-funded class will begin at the same time.

“The Twinning program has been the most gratifying program I’ve ever participated in,” said Melissa Morland, assistant director and biosafety officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, who has been a twin in every class since the beginning. “It is amazing to know that as part of this program, we are part of the progress that is being made in developing biorisk management around the world. I love to see the excitement of the twins as they are part of something new at their facilities and often in their home countries.”