GBAC Prepares for Microbial Warfare

NORTHBROOK, Ill.—December 19, 2019—At the recent ISSA Show North America, ISSA Media Director Jeff Cross interviewed Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), a division of ISSA, about creating a systems approach for conquering the invisible enemy—pathogens, bacteria, viruses, mold, etc.

See the full video, “GBAC Prepares for Microbial Warfare,” below.

“We talk about safety; we talk about security; we talk about ‘how clean is clean.’ And these are conversations we never put away in a cupboard. We keep having them every day, and that gets me really excited,” Macgregor-Skinner says. “I think as a Global Biorisk Advisory Council, we want to take on those hard problems.”

Macgregor-Skinner says GBAC’s role as an advisory council is to help cleaning professionals acquire the training and knowledge required for a systems approach to microbial warfare that will allow professional cleaners “to do better, make a better return on investment, and be a more important and better professional to the community that you serve.”

As far as the future of cleaning, health, and what we should be aware of in the cleaning industry, Macgregor-Skinner says it comes down to a team-based approach. “It’s being able to take the knowledge, the evidence, the chemistry, but also the lessons learned,” he said. Macgregor-Skinner noted that at an event like the ISSA Show, he sees many examples of how shared knowledge and experience among professionals could help the entire industry improve. “I think ISSA, through the Global Risk Advisory Council, is actually going to provide that platform, that forum for you to reach out and say, ‘Where are those lessons learned? How do we distribute that high-quality knowledge and information we have to a lot of people?’ I’m not talking about a few people; I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of people.”

The Global BioRisk Advisory Council’s vision of forensic restoration recognizes the need to bring together the scientific, decontamination, and restoration communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from biological dangers in an increasingly integrated world. For more information, visit gbac.org.

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