Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Institutional Biosafety Committee
Meeting Notes
June 17, 2014
Present:
Drs. Albrecht, Felsenfeld, Johnson, Lee, Simon, Wallach; Mr. Aminian, Ms.
Schneier
Also Present: Dr. Dirk Homann
1) Changes in the Committee roster
Dr. Simon introduced Benhur Lee, MD, PhD, who recently joined Mount Sinai as a Professor
of Microbiology and has agreed to serve on the Institutional Biosafety Committee as of July
2014. Dr. Ben tenOever will rotate off the committee as of June 30, 2014.
2) Approval of Minutes
The minutes of the May 15, 2014 meeting were approved.
Dr. Simon thanked members for their input on the assessment of the NIH/NIAID Centers of
Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance contract, Dr. Garcia-Sastre’s Dual Use
Research of Concern (DURC) project. The IBC letter was sent to GCO which submitted the
document to the NIH on June 24, 2014.
3) Planned Experiments Under Review by IACUC/Dr. Homann
At the request of Dr. R. Miller, Director of the Center for Comparative Medicine and
Surgery, Dr. Homann summarized for the IBC the viruses that he studies, all of which are at
BSL-2 level.
4) Protocols:
a) (Homann) Two previous BS-Approvals for Procedures
The issue was tabled pending IACUC review. The pathogens require BSL2 practices and
precaution. Additional SOPs and protocols may be requested to protect immunocompromised or pregnant individuals. The committee members will comment on the
pending IACUC protocol.
b) (Aird) Pre-approval for two clinical studies which are not under NIH Guidelines,
but are still reported to the IBC since we are requiring BSL-2 practices and
reporting of any (S)AE’s
No vote was necessary on this protocol, which was previously reviewed by Dr. Simon
and Mr. Hauck.
c) (Basler) “Replication Complex of Reston Virus”
Work with different mammalian expression plasmids encoding Reston virus proteins
(less than 2/3 of the genome) are proposed. No infectious virus can be generated with
these reagents. The protocol was approved for work at BSL-2.
5) New Business
The DURC sub-committee reviewed a risk mitigation and communication plan developed by
Dr. Garcia Sastre for project 008: Role of the PB1-F2 of H7N9 viruses in pathogenesis (part
of the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis grant). The subcommittee found the
risk mitigation and communication plan appropriate and proposed to approve the document.
The full committee followed this recommendation. The risk mitigation and communication
plan will be submitted to NIH by the PI.