Symposium Description

The Canadian Association for Biological Safety/L’Association Canadienne pour la Sécurité Biologique (CABS-ACSB) is happy to present the Canadian Biosafety Symposium! Join us in Ottawa, ON from September 23-25, 2025 for Canada’s annual event for biosafety professionals and personnel involved in biosafety and/or biocontainment facilities.

The Canadian Biosafety Symposium will feature presentations on an array of biosafety topics, including emergency management for labs, building a biosafety culture, biosafety and public health, emerging and re-emerging diseases, laboratory acquired infections, ergonomics and safety, biowaste management and disinfection, regulations, airflow, ventilation, design and biosafety, animal issues, audits and inspections, occupational health and surveillance. It will be a unique opportunity for the biosafety community to learn and share knowledge with colleagues from across Canada and other countries.

The Canadian Biosafety Symposium brings together participants working across the biosafety field in universities, government and the private sector, such as:

• Laboratory managers and administrators
• Academic and government laboratory researchers
• Government regulators
• Biocontainment professionals
• Equipment and facilities providers
• Containment facility design and operation specialists
• Risk assessment and safety specialists

The event will feature prominent containment and biosafety specialists, and will involve presentations by the Canadian and international biosafety community selected from abstracts and papers that are currently being welcomed from all sources. All topics related to biological safety are welcome.

Please contact us if you have questions or need more information.

Venue and Accommodations

The 2025 Canadian Biosafety Symposium will be held at the Delta Ottawa City Centre.

Delta Ottawa City Centre,
101 Lyon Street North, Ottawa, ON, K1R 5T9 Canada.

Group rate link will be available in 2025.

Sponsorship Information

2025 Sponsorship Information coming soon.

Registration

Online registration is not available – Stay Tuned!

Pre-Symposium Courses List

TBD - Stay Tuned!

Program

The program will be announced in 2025

Call for Papers

CABS-ACSB is accepting presentations for the next Biosafety Symposium!

The symposium will consist of presentations related to advanced concepts in the areas of biosafety and biosecurity in Canadas. The theme of the symposium series will reflect current biosafety and biosecurity issues as well as regulatory initiatives.

The program committee is soliciting abstracts for presentations for this symposium, which are broadly based on the theme of Biosafety. Abstract submission for presentations is open to Canadian and international participants.

The following broad categories are the focus for the Canadian Biosafety Symposium, however, papers on other appropriate topics that relate to the goals of the symposium will be considered. Example of past topics include:

• Biosafety
• Biosecurity
• Regulatory initiatives impacting biosafety
• Containment facility design, commissioning, maintenance and operation
• Infectious diseases affecting humans and/or animals
• Containment/laboratory equipment
• Microbiological techniques (e.g. disinfection and decontamination)
• Biological risk assessment and communication
• Applied biosafety research
• Lab acquired infections, incidents, exposures, and lessons learned
• Other biosafety related subjects

All submissions must reflect original work and must adequately document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. If authors have any doubts regarding whether such overlap exists, they should contact CABS-ACSB prior to submission.

All submissions will be handled electronically through CABS-ACSB.

Abstracts must include the objective, methods, results and conclusion of the study.

CABS-ACSB will evaluate all submissions based on quality and relevance. All submissions are held in confidence prior to publication in the symposium proceedings.

Where employer, client, or government authorization is needed, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain such authorization prior to submitting the final materials.

Accepted presentations will be notified by CABS-ACSB and will be presented by their author(s), which will be published in the symposium program, along with Author Biographies.

Please email us submissions of abstracts for oral or poster presentations.