Academic Labs Rule

EPA regulations. Academic Labs Rule. 40 CFR 262 http //www. ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx SID=fcd8095f7b8e5daeff28b766788b3d3e node=pt40.26.262 rgn=div5, (accessed Mar 2015). See also http // www.epa.gov/hwgenerators/regulations-hazardous-waste-generated-academic-laboratories (accessed Dec 2015). 

The CSB web site is an excellent source for reading thorough reports about major chemical accidents. It is often the case that the list of what went wrong is, in retrospect, a list of completely preventable errors and usually there are several errors that act in combination to lead to catastrophic events. All of this can be applied to much smaller, academic lab projects, however. Applying the basic questions of PHA to all laboratory experiments will prevent accidents and incidents almost 100% of the time. Reading through the various incidents that serve as introductions to most sections of this book invariably leads to the observations that that could have easily been prevented if basic safety rules had been followed. 

More recently, a few academic research labs and companies have examined the properties of effective siRNA molecules and created algorithms to help them extend some of the simple rules first established by Tuschl s group. Ding and Lawrence [13] expanded these rules to include secondary structure and accessibility prediction in their program called SiRNA. Their basic siRNA design steps include the following ... 

The first and most important rule is Follow instractions It is easy at the end of a lab experiment to be rashing to finish the experiment, clean and put away equipment, and move on to the next task in your academic life. And it is usually at the end of the experiment when you are likely to take care of accumulated wastes. So, take a little time to be conscientious about this task for reasons of safety, environmental protection, and cost savings. 

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