Biosafety Cabinet

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.

A biosafety cabinet (BSC) - also called biological safety cabinet or microbiological safety cabinet - is an enclosed, ventilated laboratory workspace for safely working with materials contaminated with (or potentially contaminated with) pathogens requiring a defined biosafety level.

Several different types of BSC exist, differentiated by the degree of biocontainment required.

BSCs first became commercially available in 1950. The primary purpose of a BSC is to serve as the primary means to protect the laboratory worker and the surrounding environment from pathogens.

All exhaust air is HEPA-filtered as it exits the biosafety cabinet, removing harmful bacteria and viruses.

This is in contrast to a laminar flow clean bench, which blows unfiltered exhaust air towards the user and is not safe for work with pathogenic agents.

Neither are most BSCs safe for use as fume hoods. Likewise, a fume hood fails to provide the environmental protection that HEPA filtration in a BSC would provide.

However, most classes of BSCs have a secondary purpose to maintain the sterility of materials inside (the "product").