Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
378-389
378
Of the large amount of funds spent each year in this country on construction and
remodeling of biomedical research facilities, a significant portion is directed to
laboratories handling infectious microorganisms. This paper is intended for the
scientific administrators, architects, and engineers concerned with the design of new
microbiological facilities. It develops and explains the concept of primary and
secondary barriers for the containment of microorganisms. The basic objectives of a
microbiological research laboratory, (i) protection of the experimenter and staff,
(ii) protection of the surrounding community, and (iii) maintenance of experimental
validity, are defined. In the design of a new infectious-disease research laboratory,
early identification should be made of the five functional zones of the facility and
their relation to each other. The following five zones and design criteria applicable
to each are discussed: clean and transition, research area, animal holding and research area, laboratory support, engineering support. The magnitude of equipment
and design criteria which are necessary to integrate these five zones into an efficient and safe facility are delineated.
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bottle,
FIG. 1. Safety cabinet (upper left); ventilated animal cage (upper right); safety centrifuge cup (lower left);
safety blendor bowl (lower right).
SECONDARY BARRIE
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Clean Office
reception area
Entry *
Clean Corridor
381
382
Contaminated Office
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absolute cabinet systems for performing highhazard operations. The absolute cabinet system
terminates with a double-doored autoclave, and
a germicidal liquid bath is also available for
passing materials in and out of the system. At
least some of the other laboratory rooms should....
have free-standing, single-door autoclaves. ThisXl..
reduces the need to transport potentially infectious materials in the corridors. In determining
spatial arrangements for safety cabinets and the
most effective and efficient room sizes, the bench
priate.
|............
384
Cleor Co- do
racks (Fig. 11). In some instances it may be desirable to locate aerosol exposure equipment, such
as the Henderson apparatus, in a room adjoining
the animal room.
If not available elsewhere, the animal area
should have an incinerator for disposing of animal
carcasses, and a large autoclave for sterilizing
cages and passing them into a cage-washing room.
In designing this zone, the type and degree of
animal isolation should receive early consideration. It should always provide for safe working
conditions for personnel and prevent undesired
animal cross-infection. The caging system selected
will affect the cost of the facility, and ventilated
cages will have an impact upon the size of the
air-handling equipment.
Dust filters should be installed at the air exhaust
ducts of the animal rooms to prevent excessive
loading of the downstream microbial filters with
animal hair and dander. It is desirable to have
these filters decontaminated in situ and changed
by laboratory personnel. The recommended minimal ventilation rate (Guide for Laboratory Animal Facilities and Care, rev. ed., Public Health
Service Publication 1024, Washington, D.C.,
1965) for the rooms is 15 changes per hour of
filtered, nonrecirculated, draft-free air of the relative humidity and temperature appropriate to the
animal species. Since the walls and floors of animal areas will be decontaminated and washed
frequently and exposed to urine and other wastes,
careful selection should be made of wall paints
and finishes.
Other design considerations of importance in
the animal zone are: waterproof lighting fixtures
in wash areas, floor drains, adequate storage
areas, cage- and rack-washing equipment, automated animal care activities, etc. Although the
nature of some disease agents in small animals is
such that no special provisions are needed to pre-
be resistant to flowing steam and to the disinfectants used in the decontamination process and
frequent washings. Walls, wall curbings, and
ceilings should be free of cracks, and the coatings
flexible enough to span minor shifts in the structural system. A monolithic covering is often used
on the floors.
(v) Casework and other installed equipment,
when possible, should be sealed to floors and walls
to limit possible spread of contamination. Equipment not sealed to walls or floors should be
movable or mounted on wheels to facilitate decontamination and cleaning.
(vi) Lighting fixtures, pipes, conduit, and other
services that penetrate the secondary barrier wall
must be designed and installed to preserve the
biological separation between the contaminated
and clean zones. Electrical conduit should be
internally sealed. Fixtures should be sealed to the
wall or ceiling or mounted away from the surface
for ease of cleaning.
(vii) To limit personnel traffic, liberal use
should be made of viewing windows and speaking
diaphrams in doors or walls to laboratories, particularly doors to walk-in refrigerator and incubator rooms.
(viii) In some rooms it may be desirable to install ceiling-mounted UV fixtures operated from
the corridor when the room is unoccupied. These
fixtures aid in reducing nonspecific microbial contamination and are useful in case of an accidental
spill of infectious material.
Animal research zone. When the animal research
zone is used for relatively small laboratory animals, the rooms are usually located in the same
building as the laboratory research zone. This
zone typically includes rooms for animal inoculation and autopsy, and infected-animal holding
rooms equipped with primary-barrier isolation
equipment such as ventilated cages and UV cage
APPL. MICROBIOL.
385
t,
Laboratory support zone. In many infectiousdisease laboratories, the zone for laboratory support is best located outside the contaminated
research zones. From an economic
andiftnctional
standpoint, this location reduces the amount of
secondary-barrier area required and provides an
opportunity for grouping similar support functions in one area. An admitted disadvantage of
locating the laboratory support zone outside the
contaminated research zone is that washroom and
animal-room personnel cannot move between the
contaminated and clean zones without changing
clothing and showering, and therefore additional
FIG. 13. Nonventilated animal cage rack (with UV personnel may be required.
screen).
A typical laboratory support zone (Fig. 16)
FIG. 14.
386
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incineratof
room
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2.
3.
4.
5.
FIG. 18. Batch-type liquid waste treatment system.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
FIG. 19. Continuous-flow waste-treatment system.
LITERATURE CITED
CHATIGNY, M. A. 1961. Protection against infection in the microbiological laboratory: devices
and procedures. Adv. Appl. Microbiol. 3:131192.
DECKER, H. M., L. M. BUCHANAN, L. B. HALL,
AND G. D. GARDNER, JR. 1962. Air filtration of
microbial particles. Public Health Service
Publication 953, Washington, D.C.
DOLOWy, W. C. 1961. Medical research laboratory of the University of Illinois. Proc. Animal
Care Panel 11:267-280.
GLICK, C. A., G. G. GREMILLION, AND G. A.
BODMER. 1961. Practical methods and problems
of steam and chemical sterilization. Proc.
Animal Care Panel 11:37-44.
HORSFALL, F. L., AmD J. H. BAUER. 1940. Individual isolation of infected animals in a single
room. J. Bacteriol. 40:569-580.
KIRCHHEIMER, W. F., J. V. JEMSKI, AND G. B
PHILLIPS. 1961. Cross-infection among experimental animals by organisms infectious for
man. Proc. Animal Care Panel 11:83-92.
NORMAN, J. D. 1964. The bench concept in
laboratory planning. Health Lab. Sci. 1:179184.
PHILLIPS, C. R. 1957. Gaseous sterilization, p.
746-765. In G. F. Reddish [ed.], Antiseptics,
disinfectants, fungicides and chemical and
physical sterilization. Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia.
PHILLIPS, G. B. 1965. Microbiological hazards in
the laboratory. J. Chem. Ed. 42:43-48, 117-130.
PHILLIPS, G. B., G. C. BROADWATER, M. REITMAN, AND R. L. ALG. 1956. Cross infections
among brucella-infected guinea pigs. J. Infect.
Diseases 99:56-59.
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