The mission of the Biosafety Review Board (BRB) is to identify, evaluate, control and prevent biological hazards in conformance with NASA, federal and international health and safety regulations. The BRB includes a team of microbiologists, cell biologists, physicians, industrial hygienists, and occupational health professionals to assess the wide range of biohazardous materials encountered. Biohazardous materials may consist of bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, cell cultures, and other infectious agents. All biological payloads are assessed and biohazardous materials identified are assigned a NASA biosafety level (BSL). Additional functions of the BRB include evaluating ground-based experiments utilizing biohazardous materials, maintaining a current inventory of biohazardous materials that are stored at JSC facilities, and conducting an annual inspection of JSC facilities utilizing biohazardous materials.
Biosafety Review Board Operations and Requirements Document
This Biosafety Review Board Operations and Requirements Document (PDF, 775KB) establishes requirements for the information needed by the BRB to identify and assess biohazardous materials utilized in payload or ground-based experiments. The document also defines the requirements for tracking biohazardous materials that are stored at JSC facilities and the requirements for inspecting JSC facilities utilizing biohazardous materials. This document supersedes all biological material references in JSC 27472 “Requirements for Submission of Data Needed for Toxicological Assessment of Chemicals to be Flown on Manned Spacecraft”.
How to Submit a Payload Experiment for Biosafety Review
Submission – ISS
For all flights to ISS, please submit data via the electronic hazardous materials summary table (eHMST) tool. If you do not have access to this tool, please submit a NAMS request for access to JSC – CMC External Tools.
Data Submission – Exploration
For all Artemis requests (Orion, Gateway, Human Lander System (HLS)), please complete the Data Submittal Form linked below and submit it to JSC-BRB-ECLS-TOX@mail.nasa.gov.
NOTE: For experimental payloads/hardware planned for launch on a Russian vehicle, stowed and/or operated on the Russian Segment of ISS, or planned for return or disposal on a Russian vehicle, we strongly encourage payload providers to submit biological and chemical data to the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (moukhamedieva@imbp.ru or barantseva@imbp.ru) .
Ground Based Experiment for Biosafety Review
Completed forms are submitted to JSC-microbrb@mail.nasa.gov.
Points of Contact
Jane F. McCourt, MT (ASCP), RBP (ABSA) Executive Officer Biosafety Review Board
Mark Ott, PhD, Chairman Biosafety Review Board
