Pukyong National University

PKNU's Virus Lab has been re-accredited as a ‘Laboratory Recognized for Excellence in Safety Management’

- Head Prof. Choi Tae-Jin from the Dept. of Microbiology … Achievements following accreditation in 2019

△ Virus Lab, Department of Microbiology

Pukyong National University (President Jang Young-Soo), Department of Microbiology, College of Natural Sciences, Virus Lab (Head Prof. Choi Tae-Jin) was re-accredited as an ‘Excellence in Safety Management Lab’.

The Virus Lab of the Department of Microbiology has been recently re-accredited in the second round of 2021 screening to select laboratories with excellent safety management, hosted by the National Research Safety Headquarters (NRSH) under the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). The validation period is 2 years.

The ‘Accreditation System for Excellent Safety Management Lab’ is a system that grants accreditation to excellent laboratories by evaluating the safety environment system, safety environment activity level, and safety awareness of safety management personnel through screening by experts in this field.

The Virus Lab of the Department of Microbiology at Pukyong National University was selected as the best laboratory in the screening conducted in 2019 and received the Award of Ministry of Science and ICT. Following this, through continuous safety management, the laboratory has achieved the result of being re-certified this time.

Professor Choi Tae-Jin stressed, "To obtain this accreditation, additional work is required for research activities, such as the management of over 700 safety management manuals and 10 types of documents, but I think it is a necessary system for safe research activities. Especially, companies and research institutes have recently implemented this system, which helps students find employment, so efforts to promote this system are necessary."

He continued, "It is necessary to expand the certification of excellent safety management laboratories by referring to cases of other universities that have secured many excellent laboratories in safety management, and for this, we will make efforts to actively share our experiences."

Pukyong National University is undertaking various tasks related to laboratory safety management, such as operating a Center for Safety Management headed by the Vice President for External Affairs and Development. The Center for Safety Management plans to strengthen material and institutional support to expand the safety management excellent laboratory certification project, and use the re-accredited virus laboratory as an educational model for teachers who are interested in certification of excellent safety management laboratory, such as new teachers. <Pukyong Today>