Technology plays a significant role in streamlining the administrative process in the scientific research community. An area where technology significantly enhances efficiency is the application for biosafety permits at academic institutions. Principal Investigators must obtain these permits for areas of research involving biohazardous conditions and materials. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are a vital feature of biosafety permit application technology because they streamline data sourcing, reduce manual input, improve operational efficiency, accuracy, security and compliance.
Biosafety is a critical component of scientific research in academic institutions where Principal Investigators (PIs) often lead research studies that might involve the use of toxins, microorganisms, rDNA, animals or humans. Therefore, the PIs and institutional biosafety committees (IBCs) are required to navigate a complex biosafety permits application process to remain in compliance with safety protocols. A typical Biosafety Permit application process is often paper based, cumbersome, time-consuming and involves manual data entry and sourcing of documentation required by the approval process. Any required information such as previous submissions, approved protocols etc. is likely stored across several fragmented data systems at the academic institutions, therefore lack of a centralized, efficient system to retrieve, update, and manage protocol data leads to administrative hurdles, inconsistencies, and delays in approvals.
Technology solutions like SafetyStratus API Integrations help the platform to significantly streamline and enhance the biosafety permit application experience for PIs. These APIs automate the process of populating the fundamental datapoints that every application requires. To accomplish this automation, the platform makes API calls to university human resources and facility databases to populate research personnel and lab / facility data in the SafetyStratus platform. When a PI starts a permit application on the platform, their profile and lab personnel information is auto populated on the application. From there, they can select the specific lab/ facility where they plan to conduct their research. Additionally, the permit application can perform API queries on the university’s databases to retrieve a list of the latest funding sources information and any preapproved protocol information (IRB, IACUC etc.) and the PIs can select those that are appropriate to their permit. This level of automation significantly reduces the PI’s time in sourcing basic information and allows them to focus on the more important task of documenting their research and safety protocol details on the permit. Furthermore, this information is automatically available to the PIs on any future amendments or renewals of these permits, also new API queries can be made to update their permits with the most current information. This ensures real-time accuracy, compliance with regulations, secure data sharing and efficiency in the permit application process.
API integrations are a game changing technology solution for PIs and IBCs to navigate the complexities of the biosafety permit applications process at their institutions. They help reduce manual data input, enhance data accuracy and accelerate the approval process timelines, overcome administrative / bureaucratic hurdles and thereby contribute to a safer and efficient research environment.
AUTHOR BIO:-
Krishna Durbha is a Lead Subject Matter Expert at SafetyStratus with over three years of experience guiding enterprise clients across construction, real estate, higher education, and IT infrastructure.
He writes to connect practical safety challenges with technology-driven solutions and is passionate about helping organizations strengthen their safety and compliance programs through effective strategies.
