Abstract
The National Select Agents Registry Program regulates the possession, use, and transfer of biological agents and toxins that have been determined to have the potential to pose a severe threat to public safety, to animal or plant health, or to animal or plant products. The program requires that an accurate and current inventory be maintained for each select agent held in long-term storage and for each select toxin. Paper-based systems are easy to implement but can be difficult to maintain, particularly as the number of samples that needs to be documented increases. This article chronicles the development of an electronic system that helps facilitate compliance with the select agents program, while maintaining usability for scientists—particularly while operating in high-containment environments. The system records all required details of samples, including characteristics and manipulations associated with a sample, and additional fields can be added should the regulations change. Each sample is given a unique identifier and labels can be printed with barcodes; searching for sample details using a barcode is highly efficient and limits the need for typing when operating in high containment, which is desirable. Users are given unique identifiers and all transactions are associated with each user. The system can accommodate “audit track” freezer hardware to permit linking of each freezer-access with manipulations performed by a particular user. The system is browser-based and communication between the browser and the server is encrypted. For increased security, separate databases can be installed with different log-in requirements.