Core Facilities
The BSL3 laboratories at UCI are core facilities owned and operated by the School of Medicine and the School of Biological Sciences. These laboratories are available to researchers at UCI, with limited capabilities for outside contract work.
BSL3 laboratories are highly engineered facilities built to carry out research with high-risk infectious pathogens. UCI schools provide management and oversight for operations of the facilities. UCI’s High Containment Program provides specialized expertise in regulatory and safety requirements to the departments/schools that work in and manage the laboratory spaces. The University High Containment Laboratory Officer (HCLO) and BSL-3 Lab Manager oversee the regulatory and compliance-based aspects of UCI BSL-3 laboratories by providing operations support, ensuring regular maintenance, overseeing annual laboratory verifications, ensuring all regulatory and safety standards are met, and that personnel training is effective.
The UCI BSL3 facilities have dedicated single-pass HEPA-filtered exhaust under negative pressure & directional airflow with sophisticated emergency backup systems and alarms for continuous real-time monitoring of the individual laboratory room pressures and containment status. One-way pass-through autoclaves are used to sterilize all waste out of the facilities.
Questions about UCI BSL-3 labs? Contact UCI BSL-3 Laboratory Manager Lauren Hitchcock at wiestl@uci.edu.
Questions about UCI’s Biosafety programs or detailed information regarding the UCI facilities? Visit the High Containment Program page.
Questions about BSL-3 Training? Visit the BSL-3 Training Program page.