The Committee on Biological Agents (Ausschuss für Biologische Arbeitsstoffe, ABAS) held this year's Bio-Agent Day on 23 April 2024 at the recently opened Mauerstraße 27 Conference Centre in Berlin. Bio-Agent Day was very well attended yet again, attracting 170 participants concerned with biosafety in the workplace.

This year the Committee on Biological Agents was able to mark three significant occasions with the members of the expert community who were present:

1. Prof. Andreas Podbielski was presented with the ABAS Honorary Award for his many years of dedicated work as a member of the committee and his great commitment to the further development of occupational safety and health for workers whose jobs put them in contact with biological agents.
2. For ten years now interested parties have been able to access information about biological agents and activity data sheets free of charge through the GESTIS Biological Agents Database.
3. The Biological Agents Ordinance (Biostoffverordnung, BioStoffV) was adopted twenty-five years ago, strengthening occupational safety and health provision for activities involving biological agents in Germany.

The speakers drew on deep reserves of insider knowledge to describe the challenges faced when the Biological Agents Ordinance was being developed, from the debate about the legal basis it would require and the resolution of this issue with the enactment of the 1996 Occupational Safety and Health Act (Arbeitsschutzgesetz, ArbSchG) to the contentious discussions at hearings with stakeholder groups before the Biological Agents Ordinance finally entered into force on 1 April 1999. This part of the conference was rounded off by a look forward to the future that touched on the areas where the Biological Agents Ordinance will have to prove its worth in the years ahead.

The second part concentrated on celebrating the tenth anniversary of the GESTIS Biological Agents Database. Initial discussions about the need for a database of bioagents to complement the GESTIS Substance Database took place in 1993 and the first active work was carried out in 2013. Bio-Agent Day 2014 then saw the GESTIS Biological Agents Database go online. Today it contains more than 18,000 data sheets. Information can be viewed about all the biological agents that have been classified by the ABAS.

Additionally, the Committee on Biological Agents offered its guests interesting expert papers on various aspects of the relevant technical rules and the practical use of the Biological Agents Database:

• Technical Rule for Biological Agents (TRBA) 462: How does the Biological Agents Committee classify viruses and TSE agents, what criteria are considered, and how are the countless new discoveries handled?
• Hardly anyone talks about BSE any longer. Nevertheless, it is vitally urgent to implement safety measures for research activities involving contact with TSE-associated agents and the proteopathic seeds of other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
• Bird flu has disappeared from the headlines as well, but still poses a threat to birds. What protection do human beings need?
• What benefits do the GESTIS data sheets hold for veterinary surgeons?
• The GESTIS Database provides helpful activity data sheets describing concrete protective measures for companies that treat mould infestations in buildings.
• There are no limit values for biological agents. Can they actually be measured? Yes, the comprehensively revised Technical Rule for Biological Agents 405 explains how this can be done.
• Twenty-four years of the technical control value for mesophilic moulds in the waste management industry: tried-and-tested concept or outdated approach?
• A breath of fresh country air: challenges for occupational safety and health and analytics.

Bio-Agent Day concluded with the chairs of the ABAS's subcommittees reporting on their current activities.

The detailed event documentation including presentation slides can be found on the German website.